作文

用解构主义分析下面这首诗(找出一个unification,一个主题,再找出背后的矛盾,说明这个unification不存在,来说明真正的相反的主题。括号和中文是我标的)发现号也是美国的航天飞机。

Discovery

The week the latest rocket went

up, a pod (if that's the word)

of manatees, come upriver

to Blue Spring, where it's

always warm, could be seen

lolling,jacketed, elephantine,

on the weedy borderline

between drowsing and waking,

breathing and drowning.

As they came up for air,

one by one, theyseemed numb,

torpid, quite incurious.No

imagining these sirenians

dangerously singing. Or

gazing up yearningly: so much

for the Little Mermaid.True,人鱼,海牛的一种,被误认为是美人鱼

the long-lashedlittle ones睫毛

might have been trademarked

“Cute” by the likes ofWalt Disney.

His world's over that way,(why is the sentence separated into two stanzas?)

suitably for a peninsula where半岛

the cozy mythologies we've舒适的

swindled ourselves with, on诈骗

taking things easy, might even

come true:sun-kissed nakedness

on the beach, year-round, guilt-free

hibiscus and oranges, fountains木槿

welling up through the limestone,石灰石

therumorofPonce de León, having

found the one he was looking for,

living at ease in, some say

Boca Raton, othersCádiz.A lasta city in Florida

bedtime placebo?Still, we keep安慰剂、宽心话

looking up. That clear morning,

just warm enough for aliftoff,(why is“warm”mentioned so frequently?)

the fabulous itself could be seen极好的(suggesting“discovery”)

unwieldily,jacket by jacket,笨拙

in the act ofshedding, as蜕皮

a snake does its husk, or皮

a celebrant his vestments:礼仪服装

the fiery, the arrowy tip of it,

ofthe actual going invisible,

trailing its vaporous, ribboning跟踪

frond as from a kelp bed,海带

the umbilical roar of it肚脐的

stumbling behind, while up in

the belly of it, out of their

element,jacketed,lollingand treading,the discoverers

soar, clumsyin space suits.

What are we anyhow, we warmth-

hungry, breast-seekinganimals?(what is the“warmth”and“breast”for“us”?)

At Blue Spring, a day or so later,

one of the manatees, edging

toward discovery, nudged a canoe,轻推;独木舟

and from across the wet, warm,

dimly imaginable tightrope,险境

let itself be touched.(what does it mean?)

(作文:表面的主题是,海牛和宇航员一样,外表臃肿懒散,而且都是探索者。解构后,实际上是,海牛和人不一样,他们并没有在探索什么,没有探索的精神,人类的探索不是像海牛那样懒散,想童话故事里那样美好轻易就能完成的。)

No“cozy mythologies”in human’s discovery

The poem“Discovery”literally links the spacemen with the manatees for both of them are“jacketed”discoverers and look“clumsy”. However, with further analysis, we can find that the linking is problematic for there are many differences in the qualities of the human beings and other animals, especially in spirit. The real discoverer is the human beings instead of the manatee.

Seemingly, the descriptions about the manatee and the human astronaut mingle in the poem from the appearance to the spirit for discovery. First, the manatee is linked with the spaceman by the description of their appearances since the word“jacketed”is used for both the manatees with thick skin and the spaceman with space suit. Second, the definition in“we warmth-/hungry, breast-seeking animals?”literally apply to the two kinds of creatures.Third, the astronauts live in the space and the manatee lives in water as“breast-seeking”animals, which proves that they are both“out of their / element”. Fourth, it seems that in the last stanza the manatee is“edging / toward discovery”, like the human astronauts, which further unifies the two. Fifth, some people might insist that both manatees and humans are discovering“the fabulous itself”, since the poem says“the fabulous itself could be seen / ..... / a snake dose it husk, or / a celebrant his vestments”in which the reference to the snake and the celebrant again seems to link animal and human activities. Therefore, some people might argue that the poem unifies the animal the manatee and the human astronaut.

However, with the following details, the poem might actually show the differences between the animal and the human beings while the mingling descriptions are“cozy mythologies”. First, the word“jacketed”actually applies better to the human beings since the spaceman could put off his or her“jacket”, the space suit, while the manatee could not do it with its skin. Second, on the contrary, the notion“we warmth-/hungry, breast-seeking animals?”is for the manatee but not for human beings. The place where the manatees come upriver, Blue Spring, is“always warm”so they are hungry for warmth and the word“breast-seeking”indicates that they only care about subsistence. However, where the spaceman goes, the space is not warm but full of all kinds of angers. We look up for a morning that is“warm enough for a liftoff”because weather is one of the keys for the success of the liftoff. What we hunger and seek for is the exploration, instead of simply the warmth.In this case we can see that it is improper to ignore our spirit of taking risk discovering and consider us as the“warmth- / hungry, breast-seeking animals”as the manatees. Third, it is illogical to say that the manatee is“out of their / element”. In the water or up to Blue Spring, the manatee can feel at ease,“lolling, jacketed, elephantine, /... / between drowsing and waking, / breathing and drowning”. As for the spacemen, they are“lolling”too, but for different reasons: their movement is limited by the weightlessness in the space, which is really“out of their / element”. Besides, the space suit and a lot of other preparations contribute for their survival in the space while the manatee is born for both in the water and upriver. Therefore,“out of their / element”can not apply to the manatee. Fourth, the manatee is indeed“edging / toward discovery”, but not as a discoverer as the spaceman. Instead, it“let itself be touched”, which means it acts as the object to be discovered. What’s more, the manatee shows no spirit for discovering , even without any objection to discover. Because they would never be seen“dangerously singing. Or/gazing up yearningly”and“they seemed numb, / torpid, quite incurious”. Not to say that they would take adventures to discover anything. Fifth, there is an obvious difference between the snake and the celebrant in the poem; the snake shed for the physiology reason while the celebrant with his vestments has further pursuit of psychology, which enables the human beings to discover“the fabulous itself”. And it is also the main difference between the manatee and the human astronaut and the reason why they are not unified in the poem. As a result, we can see that the poem is not to unify the animals and the human beings in the discovery. The seeming unification is simply the“cozy mythologies”, implying the wrong idea that people in the discovery“taking things easy”could success in a“lolling”way like a manatee.

The above contradictions between the lines stress that there are differences between animals and human beings: we have the motivation to discover and the spirit to take the adventures. There is no“cozy mythologies”in our discoveries; it is impossible for us to success in the discovery in the manatee’s way.


很开心在两点前完成作业,还可以睡一会。今天另外一个作业,看的那两篇短故事也推荐读一读,the garden party,这个故事让我感受到了不同阶级之间的代沟的形成并不是表面上那么简单,是各种复杂的影响的后果,作者是新西兰的女作家,我挺喜欢的。另外一个故事是shooting an elephant 从另外一个角度看英国白人殖民者,残酷背后的隐情,竟然是为了面子。

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