The poem ‘A Girl in a Library’ by Randall Jarrell was a difficult poem to understand. This was a great poem once I finally got the meaning of it. This poem is an example of an American girl, a remarkable character piece. In this poem, Jarrell uses both his own traits and his sense of common culture. The girl is a college student, who is blonde and athletic. This poem exposes attitudes that conflict in its description of a female student who is following a course of study that Jarrell clearly does not believe in. This poem is both humbling and sensitive about its subject. The girl is half asleep in a library where the books are largely beyond her understanding. She is characterized as having more body than mind, less than a professor as she follows her education. Her education is a degree in home economics and physical education. She is far from the perfect student. Her language is common and her goals are simpleminded. She lacks the knowledge and the involvement to understand the life that she is living. The young girl is ridiculed by Tatyana Larina, the woman from Alexander Pushkin’s Evgeny Onegin, one of Jarrell’s favorite books. The speaker in the poem engages in a conversation with Tatyana about the student. The speaker is studying the difference between the refined and intelligent Tatyana and the real American girl. It is the student’s healthy physical being that leads to the double vision of the poet, which is composed of friendliness and despise. The intangible and anonymous speaker comments “This is the waist the spirit breaks its wrist on.” In spite of her academic boundaries, her strength and her physical energy give her qualities of the fictional. The double vision comes in an indirect contrast of the girl and her library setting. She is studying but she lacks wisdom. Education is lost on her. The poem’s conclusion shows that she has her value as a female model, a luxuriance queen. This was a very interesting poem but it was very hard to understand.
No comments:
Post a Comment