Walt Whitman, A Kosmos

Reading the poetry of Walt Whitman is a unique experience.  His poetry extends far above and beyond the reach of most other contemporary poets because of the vast scope that his work encompasses.  He not only writes about life, but he virtually lives life within his poems—they resonate with his very essence; they are overflowing with the powerful force of his life.  Whitman was so incredibly alive, and so incredibly aware of life, that life itself is imbedded in everything he wrote.

         

A particular favorite poem of mine that Whitman wrote is I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing.  This poem is beautiful in its simplicity and its undemanding tone, and yet it is simultaneously wonderfully complex.  First, it is a nature poem, which I adore; nature poetry is easily my favorite kind, and Whitman does an exquisite job with it in this particular piece.  The descriptive quality is absolutely perfect, and he paints a magnificent mental picture of a giant mossy oak standing alone in the swamplands of the South.  But the real miracle of this poem is how seamlessly Whitman transcends the basic descriptive nature poem and turns it into so much more—he ties this tree in to his own soul; he relates it to himself, and in it he sees his own qualities as well as others.  In anthropomorphizing the oak, he makes it both representative of himself and a contrast to his own needs and desires—he admires the tree for its sturdy stature, then proceeds to admire it for the differences it shows from him: that it stands alone, “solitary,” with no one near to keep it company, which he himself could never do.

Whitman marvelously turns this nature poem inward, forming something that is both descriptive and introspective at once.  This is a wholly amazing feat to accomplish, and yet he does it so flawlessly, so eloquently, so tantalizingly, and most of all, so beautifully. 

It is obvious throughout Whitman’s work how much he purely loved life and everything in it—people, nature, art, weather, buildings, animals—and how he seems to have found joy and beauty in everything he saw, felt, smelled, and heard, but I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing brings out another quality: his almost child-like wonder of the world, which is his most endearing trait of all.  It celebrates his connection and intimacy with nature and with his natural, “primal” self, both of which made him the irrepressible, irresistible man that was “Walt Whitman, a kosmos.”

Clashes and Commonalities in "The Man to Send Rain Clouds"

Although I have written about Leslie Marmon Silko’s brilliant work, The Man to Send Rain Clouds, at least once before, there is something I find simply irresistible about this story’s timeless and universal pull toward something greater, something just beyond perception.  Every time I reread the story, I feel as Father Paul does as he sprinkles the holy water over Teofilo’s red blanket – that an element of the experience seems almost familiar, that something about it is tugging at the back of my mind and yearning to be heard and understood.

While there is a striking “clash of cultures” presented in this story between the missionary Franciscans and the native Pueblos, I do not think that it would be truly accurate to describe the occurrence as a clash of values.  The story centers on these two vastly different cultures’ unique traditions involving burial of the dead, and we are able to perceive through Silko’s gentle and unassuming narrative that both the Priest and the old man’s family are primarily concerned about Teofilo’s well-being in the afterlife.  Indeed, they may have completely differing views of what that afterlife is like, but they both agree on the major leap of faith that it does exist, and that what they do to the body now will affect how the soul proceeds after burial.  Taken from a viewpoint of neither Christianity nor Native American mythology, these two clashing cultures seem to be in a near harmony of values – their major concern is the same, and the minor differences between their desires occur only in the actual undertaking of individual ceremonial rituals.

Given this understanding of the story, it takes on an almost entirely new meaning.  The heart of the story lies in its universal humanity; Silko is portraying what it is to be human, to care for each other, to deal with agonizing issues of life and death and who we are and where we may go.  Whatever force there is in the world that drives us to religion, she shows us, has driven every culture in the history of mankind.  We are not so different after all.  All cultures, no matter how far separated by time and space, have come to the same answers – that there is a force greater than us in the universe, and that we continue on in some form after death.  The Man to Send Rain Clouds presents for us not a story of conflicting values, but of universal ones; reading this work, we see that both the Pueblos and Father Paul are able to overcome their personal differences in the face of something higher than either of them.  They come together for the good of someone they have cared about in life, putting aside worldly disparities and focusing, just for the moment, on their mutual love and concern.  Ultimately, instead of telling a tale of strife, clashing cultures, differing values, conflict, or intolerance, Silko gives us a beautiful account of one thing we all share – our humanity.

The Inane Life of Walter Mitty

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” takes place in one short winter afternoon and shows us the fantasies of an unhappy man. The story begins with Mitty and his wife driving through slushy roads into town, as Mitty imagines he is the commander of a Navy hydroplane and his wife admonishes him to drive more slowly. From there we follow along on Mitty’s mini-adventures of the mind throughout his day of errands, as he becomes a famous surgeon, a defendant in a trial, a skilled dogfighter in Europe, and, at the last, a condemned man up against a firing squad—anything to escape his wife’s nagging and his own uneventful life.

           

With this story, what could have easily been a confusing or disconcerting work has instead proven itself to be involved and clever. It was very well written, with perfectly timed and flawless transitions between reality and fantasy; for example, soon after Mrs. Mitty mentions Dr. Renshaw, Mitty drives by a hospital, which invokes a fantasy about being a skilled physician.  Later, he hears a newsboy shouting out headlines about a current trial, and Mitty imagines he is involved in a major case as a rogue defendant.  And so on. The wordplay is always perfect, the details always tie in nicely to the rest of the story, and the unity is always impeccable.

           

Having said that, I didn’t care much for this story. I agree that it is indeed a well-crafted piece of work, and I am not, as some modern feminists seem to be, insulted or offended by reading it. I think that the story is timeless, which is why it is still widely read and included in anthologies, but it seemed a bit too commonplace to be really provocative. Other enduring subjects, such as love, hate, conflict, etc., are about the deepest emotions, which we can all relate to—the “human condition.” To me, the subject of husbands and wives nagging and/or ignoring each other, while entertaining to the rest of us, is not truly worthy of being called “great.”

           

Perhaps we could stretch our literary imaginations as far as Mitty does, and we could claim that this story is about a feeling of being trapped in our situations and not knowing how to change the world outside, instead resorting to altering our perceptions. It could also be about the duality within us all, and the inner conflict between our own personalities: our perceived selves versus our presented selves. However, I don’t believe this is what Thurber had in mind when he wrote “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” I think he wrote a story about a man who would rather be anywhere than with his nagging wife, and he did a perfect and humorous job—it simply didn’t strike me as being particularly moving, inspiring, or thought-provoking.