Eleanor Rigby- John Lennon and Paul McCartney

The Beatles were a famous pop band that made long hair, bell-bottoms, and drugs popular throughout the world. John Lennon and Paul McCartney had composed many of their most popular songs. Most of their songs have a social significance that transcended their immediate audience. “Eleanor Rigby” is an example of such songs. 

The time Beatles occupied was one of socioeconomic chaos. Many people in Britain were losing faith in social institutions such as marriage, family, and religion. As a result the composers saw so many lonely people everywhere: “Ah, look at all the lonely people!/Ah, look at all the lonely people!” John and Paul were clearly pained by what they saw. And the social and spiritual vacuum left in the wake of the disintegrating socioeconomic institutions was filled by music, drugs and hippy ideology - at least to some extent - among the members of the younger generations. 

Due to socioeconomic changes in Britain, marriage as a fundamental socioeconomic institution had lost its significance. In addition, WWII had devoured thousands of young Englishmen. Consequently, even some of those women who wanted to marry were without partners. Eleanor was such a woman. Her only source of happiness was collecting the rice thrown at couples at the church after the wedding was over. As she was not invited to these wedding she probably waited outside like a beggar until the wedding was over. And when everyone had left the church she came in to enjoy a stolen moment of bittersweet pleasure. It is not clear why she collected rice. Maybe she must have thought that the wedding rice might bring her luck and change her status as a spinster?

Eleanor was a lonely woman desperate for company. Therefore, she was eager to speak to someone who may come to her door. She “[l]ives in a dream,/ Waits at the window/ Wearing a face which she keeps in a jar by the door.” In order to present herself as good company she hid her own troubles in her infrequent dealings with the larger world.  

Father McKenzie represented the church. People had lost faith in the church and as a result they did not come to church on Sundays. Therefore all the labour Father McKenzie poured in to his sermons was in vain. Nobody came to hear them. The church that had held such socioeconomic power in the past did not have enough money for Father McKenzie to buy a pair of new socks. He had to darn his old ones in secret lest someone would see his plight.  

When Eleanor dies in the church she was “buried along with her name”. There was no one to remember her or offer a prayer on her behalf. Therefore, it was appropriate to say that her name would be buried with her. Nobody came to mourn her death. It was the fate of a person who lived alone. Father McKenzie, another lonely soul, performed the last rights. He may have asked God for the salvation of Eleanor’s soul, but according to the composers no one could be saved. There was no hope for salvation for the people who led lonely lives.

Techniques:

The writers have used a considerable amount of repetition. Through that they are reiterating that there are so many lonely people around us.

The writers also pose questions that are almost rhetorical in nature. These questions reveal the bewilderment of the writers at the vast number of lonely individuals around them.

All the lonely people,

Where do they come from?

All the lonely people 

Where do they all belong?

 

Language is simple and almost conversational; consequently the poem appeals to a larger audience.  

 

Matilda – Hillaire Belloc

Hillaire Belloc was a well-known satirist. A satire is written to expose the weaknesses of a person. It ridicules the failings and flaws of society. “The Microbe” and “Matilda” are examples of his style of writing.

In this poem the theme is the danger of “crying wolf”. Matilda was a naughty child who obtained an immoral kind of pleasure by misleading people. At this point I am reminded of Nicholas and Nora in two of Saki’s short stories “The Lumber Room” and “The Open Window” who are similarly mischievous. However, unlike Belloc, Saki celebrates the mischievousness of the children.

Matlida’s aunt who values truth makes every attempt at first to believe her deceitful niece. It seems that if her efforts have nearly cost her life. Luckily she learns the danger of believing her untruthful relative before she lost her life or limbs.

Matilda told such dreadful lies,

It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes;

Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth,

Had kept strict regard for truth,

Attempted to believe Matilda;

The effort very nearly killed her

And would have done so, had not she

Discovered this infirmity.

But is what Matilda does just an infirmity? Could all these practical jokes be a plea for attention from an orphan? Matilda seemed to have possessed a very active imagination. Could she have used it better with proper guidance? The mischievous girl devoid of an outlet for her creativity resorts to pranks. This is the case with many people accused of crimes and misdemeanours. When their intelligence and energies are not properly channelled they often find outlets that are often labelled as anti-social.

For, once towards the close of day,

Matilda, growing tired of play

And finding she was left alone,

Went tiptoe to the telephone

And summoned the immediate aid

Of London’s Noble Fire Brigade

So Matilda in order to entertain her active imagination calls the fire brigade. One cannot approve what she has done as it has caused such chaos. At the same time the very fact she had managed to convince the London Fire Brigade that there was a fire in her house makes one feel impressed by her creativity and intelligence. Usually it takes a lot of convincing to make the fire brigade roll out sirens blaring. But in this case the fire brigade does not sound all too bright.

The next part of the stanza describes how the well-meaning but slightly retarded fire brigade wreck havoc in Matilda’s aunt’s house.

“Within an hour the gallant band

Were pouring in on every hand

From Putney, Hackney Downs and Bow,

With courage high and hearts a-glow

They galloped roaring through the town,

“Matilda’s house is burning down” 

It takes the fire brigade an hour to get organized, ample time for a house to burn completely down. Once they have got themselves organized, fire fighters from all over London come rushing crying, “Matilda’s house is burning down”. They gallop bravely with noble thoughts in their minds. Naturally people would cheer the gallant men on:

Inspired by British cheers and loud

Proceeding from the frenzied crowds

They ran their ladders through a score

Of windows on the ball-room floor,

And took peculiar pains to souse

The pictures up and down the house,

Until Matilda’s aunt succeeded

In showing them that they were not needed

And even then she had to pay

To get them to go away!

Emboldened by the cheers of the public, the fire brigade resorts to comical behaviour. The result is many shattered windows on the ballroom floor and drenched artwork. The behaviour of the fire brigade borders on stupidity. They are over emotional and unprofessional in the way they handle the situation. Due to this the poor longsuffering aunt has to bear a massive amount of damage. One can almost see the over enthusiastic fire fighters going around the house wrecking it followed closely by Matilda’s aunt pleading with them to stop. In the end she has to bribe them to prevent further destruction. It is as if Matilda has a good idea of the type of people who manned institutions that served the public.

A few weeks later the aunt goes to the Theatre leaving Matilda home as a punishment. Luck would have it a fire actually breaks out that very night. Locked in Matilda is incapable of escaping. It would not have worked had she called the fire brigade as they would have ignored her call as another prank. So she is reduced to calling for help. Of course no one takes her seriously. Whenever she calls out, “Fire” she is promptly called “Little Liar!” by the passers-by. So she burns to death. The aunt returning from the theatre is confronted with the sight of the burnt down house.

It is almost a re-enactment of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Matilda dies mainly due to her own conduct. One must be truthful. Dishonest people are not taken seriously by anyone. Those who are rejected by society often perish. Dishonesty causes trouble not only to others but to the person himself as well.

Techniques:

The poet had written the entire poem in rhyming couplets. It adds a musical quality to the poem. Without using much figurative language the poet had managed to create unforced humour as well as irony. There is an equal number of “feet” in each line making reading the poem aloud effortless.        

The Garden of Love – William Blake

Writers like Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and William Blake highlighted the plight of the common people in their works. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Hardy, Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist by Dickens “London” and “The Garden of Love” by Blake are examples of such works.

In “the Garden of Love” the poet criticises the role of the public institutions such as the church in the lives of the common people. In the first stanza the poet returns to the village of his birth after a long absence. Like most of us who have been absent from a place for a long time the poet goes to his favourite place of the village – the village green. He has a special name for it – the Garden of Love. To the poet it was a place full of love. The poet uses the term, “The Garden of Love”, as a proper noun highlighting the importance the place holds for him. But what he sees upon arrival is devastating. A chapel has replaced the Garden of Love.

I went to the Garden of Love

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

The Chapel represents all the restrictions placed on the natural instincts of human beings by religion. Blake does not have a very high opinion of the role of the Church in public life. In his poem “London,” the poet critics the church for turning a blind eye to the exploitation of children in his contemporary London society. Here, in the village green, a place that was used earlier by children as a playground, stands a chapel. The presence of the chapel would prevent the children from playing there. But a chapel is a necessity. Children are baptized, marriages, funeral masses are conducted in a chapel. It is a place people could go for refuge and spiritual guidance. So the poet goes towards it to have a closer look. Blake is unable to enter the premise. The gates of the chapel are shut. Over the door was written, “Thou shalt not.” It is a useless place that restricts freedom. In his mind Blake sees all the beautiful sweet smelling flowers that used to bloom in the Garden of Love.

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore;

But what he sees is a place full of tombstones. Flowers are symbols of hope and rebirth. Tombstones are symbols of death and decay. Religion, according to the poet, fills the minds of people with thoughts of death and prevents them from enjoying the gifts of nature. The priests are wearing black, a colour of doom and death. They do not like people to have “joys and desires”. So they bind the natural feelings with thorns, religious teachings, preventing free expression. The church of Victorian Era freely prescribed penitence for the sinful nature of human beings. According to the clergy human beings are born tainted with the Original Sin. Therefore the only way to obtain passage to heaven is leading a Spartan life. This line of thought is evident in the famous poem of John Milton- “On His Blindness.” The religious institutions of the Victorian England have lost their way. They have turned a religion that prescribed love into one of gloom and doom.

Techniques:

The poem has three stanzas, four lines each. The phrases “Garden of Love” and “Chapel” have symbolic meanings. They stand for two different groups of people with two diverse ideologies present in the Victorian Society; those who love freedom and free expression and the church that tried to restrict them. Tombstones, the chapel in the village green, thorns stand for religious oppression.       

William Blake was born in 1757and died in 1827. In his long life he had witnessed many of the conflicts that shaped the contemporary society such as the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, Waterloo, and the Declaration of Independence of the USA. Blake lived at a time when the Great Britain was a mighty empire. But in England, where the poet lived most of his life, there was a great socioeconomic disparity between the rich and the poor.

Wedding Photograph – Jean Arasanayagam

Jean Arasanayagam is a Sri Lankan poetess. Most of her poems are based on her own socioeconomic background. Jean Arasanayagam who is considered one of the leading Asian poets has written many poems on various issues; ethnic conflict, 83 riots, customs, etc. 

In her poem “Wedding Photographs” the poetess talks about practices related to marriage among the upper class Tamils. The poem takes the form of a dialogue between two women; a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law. The daughter-in-law wants to see a wedding photograph of her mother-in-law’s wedding.

“Have you any wedding photographs,” I ask achchi,

“No nothing,” answer my mother-in-law,

The older woman’s reply is that there aren’t any as the marriage had taken place “over a half century ago”. But that does not keep the naturally imaginative voice from imagining what it would have been like. In her mind’s eye she sees her thirty-six-year-old father-in-law and his wife sitting on a “velvet-covered divan”. Above them she sees a “flower bedecked manaverrai”. Her mother-in-law’s fragile neck is “weighed down by that thali of twenty gold sovereigns.” Thali is the symbol of marriage. The young girl of sixteen could be feeling oppressed by the responsibilities thrust upon her by her new status as a married woman. Yet, it must be noted that sixteen was considered a good marriageable age for girls in the early 1900s as the life expectancy was low and girls were not preoccupied with studies and careers. However, the narrator looking at her mother-in-low from a modern feminist point of view sees her as exploited and abused woman forced into marriage at a very young age. She seems to pity her mother-in-law.  

So fragile, weighed down by that thali of twenty

Gold sovereigns.

In the next stanza the poetess takes the reader to the very end of her mother-in-law’s marriage life. With the death of “Pata” the mother-in-law loses the right to sleep in her marriage bed. The reader is compelled to ask what else she had lost or forced to give up as a widow. Hindu families are strongly patriarchal. A widow is an ill omen and as a result loses many of the privileges a married woman enjoys.

That marriage bed, once strewn with flowers

Vacated by Pata’s death, the bed dismantled,

Cast aside, its purpose over.  

The act of dismantling of bed and casting it aside has a very significant symbolic value.

Immediately, the 4^th stanza takes the reader to the morning after the day of the marriage. The poetess visualizes her mother-in-law, still in her wedding finery, walking in the garden of her new home. Morning is the time if rebirth and new beginnings. Her loose hair implies her passage into womanhood. One is forced to question whether the new bride had felt like the jasmines on her hair, crushed, no longer fresh. But it must be noted that crushed jasmines still give out a unique fragrance.

What the older woman mutters to herself has a note of monotony found in often-repeated words – “Now I am a woman I will carry on the sacred traditions. Worship the gods and goddesses at my shrine bring forth sons and daughters.” They could be words uttered by her mother as a piece of advice. Jean wonders whether her mother-in-law regretted the loss of her childhood. Once again the readers are taken to the present. The two women are seen sitting face-to-face “musing over each other’s lives”. In her mind they see old feet walking among the remains of their ruined house. They were no longer young and are thinking about the passage of time and individual losses. One may ask whether the ruined house was a metaphor for the lives of the two women.  

In the last stanza the mother-in-law summarizes her life as a married woman. She has led an affluent life. Her whole life as a married woman had been spent being a proper married woman.

I lacked nothing, I followed the sacred rituals,

Walked round the yaham with everlasting

Flame, I remained faithful unto death to Pata,

He was handsome with his milk white skin

And slender limbs, I was so young,

He was twenty years older.

Her husband is dead, the woman continue to follow the same traditions she had followed for a greater part of her life.

Technique:

It is rather a long poem with long uneven lines and stanzas. The poet uses terms of the Tamil language. It adds a sense of authenticity to the poem. Her use of the flashback and flash forward techniques allows her to be quite economical with words. Jean Arasanayagam uses many symbols such as crushed jasmine, thali, toe-rings, dismantled marriage bed, ruined house, etc. to discuss different stages and important events of the woman’s life. the use of dialogues adds a dramatic quality to the poem.