Grandmother and About Love

Grandmother

Ray Young Bear

The poem ‘Grandmother’ was composed by an American Indian poet Ray Young Bear. He was born in 1950 in Mesquaki tribe. In the poem, the poet depicts a picture of his grandmother: all-loving and all-inspiring. Metaphorically, the poem ‘Grandmother’ has connection with Mesquaki tribe and the identity of the poet.

The poet expresses his attachment and intimacy with his grandmother. Though his grandmother is no more with him, her image with the purple scarf and the plastic shopping bag, her impression and behavior lead him to the past. At the present moment the image becomes vivid and as fresh as earlier. He loves her so much because she is loving and inspiring. He claims that he could easily recognize her shape from a mile away. When she touched on his head with her hands, he would feel warm and damp hands with the smell of roots. Not only this, he would also easily know her words coming from the rock. These words would flow inside him and inspire him to choose the right path. Therefore, her image, words and love creates nostalgic feeling to the poet. Still now, there is deep stamp of grandmother’s love and reminiscences in to his mind.

Metaphorically, the poet is Ray Young Bear’s attempt to reflect the vanishing native roots of the Native American tribes, specially the Mesquaki tribe. Metaphorically, ‘Grandmother’ is the representative of Mesquaki tribe and its culture, values and traditions. The rituals, culture and traditions of Native Americans are being overtaken by the white people and the natives have been marginalized. ‘The smell of roots’ refers to the vanishing ancestral culture and tradition lying dead in the grave. ‘A voice coming from the rock’ suggests that his grandmother has died now so her words are coming from the tombstone. Similarly, ‘sleeping fire’ refers to the vanishing Red Indian culture as well as poor condition of the poet in Mesquaki tribe. Overall, the poem gives a metaphorical expression of the painful awareness of the identity loss.

The poem in a sense deals with the images that appear to our different senses. For instance, the images of purple scarf plastic shopping bag, sleeping fire and night appeal to our sense of sight. The smell of roots refers to our sense of smell. Similarly, the voice coming from the rock and her words appeals to our sense of sound. ‘Warm and damp hands’ appeals to our sense of touch. Thus, all his senses are affected by the memory of his grandmother excepting the sense of taste.

                                                       OR

In this poem the American-Indian poet, Ray Young Bear, draws a picture of his grandmother,all-loving, all-inspiring. His grandmother would wear a purple scarf round her head for warmth and she would go to market with the plastic shopping bag in her hand. Her shape was also quit remarkable. If the poet saw her from a long distance, he could tell that she was his grandmother. She would come home working in the field and wash her hands. They were wet and had the smell of roots. She would put her hands on his head and caress it lovingly. Although they were wet,they would be warm out of love. Before he looked at her face, the smell and warmth would make him guess that it was his grandmother. Sometimes the poet would go to her grave. He would imagine to have heard a voice coming from the tombstone. He could feel to be his grandmother. He could feel that her words were moving smoothly inside him like a stream. They would inspire him. In his sad life he would find a fint glimpse of hope. He would remember the winter night when they were shivering with cild. His grandmother would wake up and try to move the fire which was covered with thick ashes and he would see her from his bed and hope that he would warm his body by the open fire.


Questions

1)What images do you find in this poem written by a member of the Sauk and Fox(Mesquaki) Indian tribe of Northen america? To what senses do these images appeal?
Ans- The poem GRANDMOTHER written by Ray young Bear deals with the attachment of the speaker with his grandmother.Since he belongs to Mesquaki tribe, he drawa the references of the Native American culture with the best application of images.
     The purple scarf and the plastic shopping bag are the objects that Red Indian women often used. They appeal to the sight. The damp and warm hands give the sense of the touch whereas the smell of roots represent the sense of smell.Finally, the words of grandmother coming from a rock are the ones that appeals to auditory faculty.
     Generally, people have a concept that images are the ones related only to sight. but in this poem , the poet makes a great application of all sense organs except for the tounge. The main objective of the poet is to create the personality of his grandmother, distinct from ordinary woman.




LESSON-2

About Love

“About Love” is a famous and interesting love story written by Russian short story writer Anton Chekhov. In this story, the writer has proved that love is not bound with martial relation. The writer also claims that love is so strange and mysterious that whenever we have read and heard about love can’t solve the problem of love. Similarly, the writer has declared that love is not happiness. It becomes a source of dissatisfaction and irritation if we start reasoning about love.

In this story, Alyohin, a narrator is a main character. He is a graduated person but he chose to be busy in farming with his servants because his land was heavily mortgaged by his parents partly for his study. He was working and living his own land, a large state. One morning Alyohin was having breakfast with his friends (Burkin and Ivan). Alyohin told them about the love affairs first about his servants and then about his own.  In the story, the writer talks about expressed love of Nikanor and Palegeya and unexpressed love of Alyohin and Anna.

According to Alyohin, a cook Nikanor and maid Palegeya, are in love. Their love is an expressed, physical and romantic. Nikanor loves Palegeya and wants to marry her. However, he is a religious one, he drinks alcohol and beats her. Paleyega also loves him very much. Nevertheless, on contrary, she wants to live with him just so without marriage. Paleyega has western concept of love because she doesn’t want to marry Nikanor.

Then he tells his own love affair with a girl with whom he lived while he was studying in Moscow. He loved her but the girl would only think about the money that he would provide her for housekeeping and for other purposes since their love was conditioned by money it can be categorized under material love, a selfish love.

At the same time while he was telling the love story of Nikanor and Paleyega and his own, he remembers about his love affair to Anna, a young married woman. One Alyohin was elected honorary justice and he had to go to the town. There he had a good friendship with Mr. Luganovich, an assistant president of the circuit court. Alyohin was invited by Luganovich to have a dinner at his home and Alyohin got opportunity to see his beautiful wife, Anna Alexeyevna. Alyohin was influenced by her beauty and she was also influenced by his physical structure. They fell in love but couldn’t express their love. Anna, the mother of a baby, was really younger and beautiful. Her image began to move in Alyohin’s mind all the time. Anna also found Alyohin younger and smarter than her husband.   

One day, Alyohin met her in a party. He found her more beautiful than before. They would go to see a play in theatre. Then Alyohin visited her frequently. He didn’t express his love because he did not like to destroy the conjugal life of his friend. He was uncertain about his own economic condition and love for her. Anna also could not express her love because she was married. Slowly and gradually, she began moody because of her unfulfilled desire. In fact, she became psychologically ill. According to the doctor’s suggestion, she had to go to Crimea for mental treatment.

As Anna set out to Crimea, many people came to see her off. She boarded the train. She had forgotten to take her basket so Alyohin rushed to her with the basket. She was desperately sitting in the compartment. When their eyes met, the spiritual strength deserted both of them. Then he embraced her in his arm. She pressed her face on his breast. He kissed her and confessed his love. Then he realized that their love was hindered by some unimportant but fatal questions. Both of them cried and departed. Actually, Alovohin did not give any importance to her physical or economic condition but simply loved her. So, we can say that it was a pure love or spiritual love.

His condition, therefore was like a squirrel that rushes around in a cage because just like the squirrel cannot come out of the cage breaking iron bars, Alyohin could not come out of his poor economic condition and could not fight against the fatal questions that were the hindrance of his love. Despite being a scholar he was condemned to work in his field being penniless and despite being young he was a lovelorn bachelor.