Sunday, February 12, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkzLHwe4-c
We spoke briefly in class of the relation "Ode on a Grecian Urn" has to certain themes in Go Down Moses, and I am choosing to revisit this topic. The poem paints an idealistic and eternal picture of beauty on the urn. Similarly, Isaac sees the woods as sacred, and immortal. I also think the "motionless" motif that Faulkner constantly writes of can be directed back to the poem. When Isaac is in the woods, he is many times motionless, like a character in a painting on the urn would be. The poem leaves the reader with the thought "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." However, the poem also discusses the hindrances in seeing this beauty as truth, explaining that this idealism "dost tease out of thought / As doth eternity." Nevertheless, Isaac lives by this moral, choosing only to see the woods as beautiful, and eternal, therefore, never accepting the change they endure. In reality, the wilderness Isaac cherishes is doomed for destruction and great change, for industrialization is making its mark. When Isaac is hunting Old Ben for the first time, he chooses not to shoot at him so he will not bring the idealistic hunt to a realistic end. In addition, Isaac continuously goes back to the woods he loves even as an old man, and "no longer told anyone how near eighty he actually was because he knew as well as they did that he no longer had any business making such expeditions" (320). Isaac never stops believing in the immortal sequence; "the fierce long heat of the next summer would renew him" (320). Is this idealistic view of the wilderness, as well as himself as a hunter, the real "truth", or is it only steering Isaac away from the reality? Chat amongst yourselves... (if you have any interest).
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I think that his idealistic view is the real "truth" in the old south but not necessarily in the new south. In the old south, it is morally accepted to have a spiritual connection to the nature and the hunt but as industrialism takes over and the land "across which there came now no scream of panther but instead the long hooting of locomotives" (324) is tainted, it becomes less acceptable to believe in the immortal wilderness. When Sam Fathers died he looked "at the woods for a moment before closing his eyes again, to remember the woods or to see that they were still there" (235). "He died at sundown" and ever since that day when him and the bear died, the wilderness has dwindled and Isaac is living in a dream world to think that the woods in which he grew up in have not been tainted.
ReplyDeleteThroughout his life, Isaac has seen his fellow hunters grow farther and farther away from the original idealistic view of nature. For most of his life, he held onto wilderness so dearly because it was never changing and always peaceful. However, I think as the wilderness is destroyed (which we see in Delta Autumn) Isaac continues to hold onto these beliefs because he feels that the wilderness is the only thing that he can trust. It has always been there to welcome him, even when his friends and family have abandoned the traditional ideas of the old south, maybe even the oldest south. I don't think it is steering him from reality but his view is definitely clouded by his love for the wilderness and lack of acceptance for its disintegration. I think it's admirable that he has stood by his ideals and stayed strong even though the world around him tries to convince him otherwise.
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