All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan

     The title of Brautigan’s poem, “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace,” itself seems to read as ridiculous. Brautigan appears to mock the notion of technology and nature coexisting peacefully, almost giving machines the place of God as “compassionate protectors” and controllers of fate. In the first stanza, Brautigan compares “pure water touching clear sky” with “a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony.” While the former scene consists of two natural things (water, sky), the latter does not (mammals and computers together in nature?); it almost seems that Brautigan chose two very contrasting scenes to invalidate that comparison he was making in the first place. Through the verse “the sooner the better”  (first stanza, second line), Brautigan seems to imply that the issue with technology is only going to get worse so the reasonable thing for all of us to do is to accept and advocate for a world where the natural and the man-made can coexist, as quickly as possible. It seems like he was quite reluctant to accept the idea himself, especially when he says “I like to think (it has to be!)” in the first and second lines of the third stanza.

     Brautigan’s poem could be considered as pro-technology as well. Each stanza contains the description of a picture where nature and technology exist side-by-side on peaceful and symbiotic terms, like the “cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics.” In the third stanza, Brautigan credits the “machines of loving grace” with watching over humans and freeing them of their labors. Those lines might suggest the possibility that machines could become efficient enough to carry out work to lighten the human load and thereby allow for time to bond with nature or return “to our mammal brothers and sisters.”

     Personally, I feel Brautigan’s poem casts a negative light on technology in general. It could be that Brautigan wrote a poem that at first seems accepting of machinery to appease those who invited him to stay at Cal Tech. However, certain clues and the poem’s overall tone seems to entail a hidden, yet deeper meaning, one that does not necessarily promote the use of technology and its advances.

Casabianca by Felicia D. Hemans

Imagery: Burning deck, battle's wreck, beautiful and bright, heroic blood, childlike form, flames rolled, faint in death, booming shots, waving hair, wreathing fires, banners in the sky, fragments strewed

        

     In the first line of Hemans’s Casabianca, the title character was standing on a burning deck, a lone figure surrounded by an enveloping flame that posed as an imminent threat to his life. All those that remained with him on the deck had already passed on to the next life. The author described the flames as lighting the battle’s wreck, highlighting the devastation that occurred on the boat and increasing the tragedy of the situation. However, the boy stood out with his quiet defiance, not running to safety as the rest of the crew had, “beautiful and bright” yet a “childlike form.” His persistence to remain until his father, already at Death’s door, would give him the word to go is reiterated each time the boy speaks into the darkness, “Say, father, say if my task is done?” or “Speak father! If I may yet be gone!” The rolling flames could also portray the boy’s inner turmoil of either staying with his father or playing the part of a coward. His pride and fierce loyalty, nevertheless, prevents him from seeking safety. All the while, the flames have slowly encompassed the length of the boat, running up the flag pole and catching the flag on fire, causing it to appear like “banners in the sky.” This magnificent fire display could be interpreted to act as a marker of the boy’s bravery and loyalty to his father, implying that his noble idea to wait for his father’s dismissal deserves such a beautiful and disturbing tribute. However, that tribute ended up taking the boy out of the picture with a bang; only the wind knew where he was. Hemans went on to say that “the noblest thing that perished there was that young, faithful heart.” 

     Hemans, as a woman, probably had strong ideas about family values and unity and she clearly emphasized her beliefs in Casabianca. Through the poem, she seems to point out that a person of true character can withstand the darkness and face danger to hold on to their convictions. Though ending with a tragic note, the poem seems to have elevated the boy to the status of a hero. His life may have had an abrupt ending, but what he epitomized would live on in the minds of the readers.  

Do oxymorons even make sense?

Contemporary. Classic. Two different words that relate to two very different ideas. Why did I choose those random words as my title? Simple; life itself is an oxymoron. We die to live and live to die. Usually, one thing can't exist without the other. My whole being is basically made up of opposites and contradictions. Just like the books I read. 

At one point of my life, I was consumed with reading almost every Victorian era romance novel that ever existed. It almost got to the point where I gave up sleep and homework just to finish a book that left me a little less than satisfied. Then came the time when I discovered the “joy” of reading dark novels. I mean  how does a person go from reading sappy stories like Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that was set in the all-real past,  to something as gruesome and ultra-violent as A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (which by the way, is a very good book with some interesting points on the notion of free will), set in a fictional future? I guess my nature needs both.  One left me a little content and the other left me contemplative. 

Hopefully the literature that I read in class will cover both areas. If not, I could always stay up until 3 A.M. finishing my copy of The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker.