'Hard Times' - themes

Themes

Fact vs. Fancy

Dickens depicts a terrifying system of education where facts, facts, and nothing but facts are pounded into the schoolchildren all day, and where memorisation of information is valued over art, imagination, or anything creative. This results in some very warped human beings. Mr. Thomas Gradgrind believes completely in this system, and as a superintendent of schools and a father, he makes sure that all the children at the schools he is responsible for, and especially his own children, are brought up knowing nothing but data and "-ologies".

 

As a result, things go very badly for his children, Tom Gradgrind and Louisa Gradgrind. Since they, as children, were always treated as if they had minds and not hearts, their adulthoods are warped, as they have no way to access their feelings or connect with others. Tom is a sulky good-for-nothing and gets involved in a crime in an effort to pay off gambling debts. Louisa is unhappy when she follows her mind, not her heart, and marries Mr. Bounderby, her father's friend. As a result of her unhappy marriage, she is later swept off her feet by a young gentleman, Mr. James "Jem" Harthouse, who comes to stay with them and who seems to understand and love her. Louisa nearly comes to ruin by running off with Harthouse.

 

Cecilia (Sissy) Jupe was encouraged when she was little to dream and imagine. She loved her father dearly, and therefore she is in touch with her heart and feelings, and has empathy and emotional strength the other children lack. Sissy, adopted by the Gradgrinds when her father abandons her, ultimately is the saviour of the family in the end.

 

Industrialism and Its Evils

Hand in hand with the glorification of data and numbers and facts in the schoolhouse is the treatment of the workers in the factories of Coketown as nothing more than machines, which produce so much per day and are not thought of as having feelings or families or dreams. Dickens depicts this situation as a result of the industrialisation of England; now that towns like Coketown are focused on producing more and more, more dirty factories are built, more smoke pollutes the air and water, and the factory owners only see their workers as part of the machines that bring them profit. In fact, the workers are only called "Hands", an indication of how objectified they are by the owners. Similarly, Mr. Gradgrind's children were brought up to be "minds". None of them are people or "hearts".

 

As the book progresses, it portrays how industrialism creates conditions in which owners treat workers as machines and workers respond by unionising to resist and fight back against the owners. In the meantime, those in Parliament (like Mr. Gradgrind, who winds up elected to office) work for the benefit of the country but not its people. In short, industrialisation creates an environment in which people cease to treat either others or themselves as people. Even the unions, the groups of factory workers who fight against the injustices of the factory owners, are not shown in a good light.

Stephen Blackpool, a poor worker at Bounderby's factory, is rejected by his fellow workers for his refusal to join the union because of a promise made to the sweet, good woman he loves, Rachael. His factory union then treats him as an outcast.

 

The remedy to industrialism and its evils in the novel is found in Sissy Jupe, the little girl who was brought up among circus performers and fairy tales. Letting loose the imagination of children lets loose their hearts as well, and, as Sissy does, they can combat and undo what a Gradgrind education produces.

 

 

Unhappy Marriages

There are many unhappy marriages in 'Hard Times' and none of them are resolved happily by the end. Mr. Gradgrind's marriage to his feeble, complaining wife is not exactly a source of misery for either of them, but neither are they or their children happy. The Gradgrind family is not a loving or affectionate one. The main unhappy marriage showcased by the novel is between Louisa Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby. Louisa marries him not out of love but out of a sense of duty to her brother, Tom, the only person in the world she loves and who wheedles her into saying "yes" because he works for Bounderby and wants to improve his chances at rising in the world. Bounderby's intentions regarding Louisa seem a bit creepy at first, but he turns out to mean no harm to her (except that he deprives her of any marital affection). The only solution to this bad marriage, once Louisa has escaped the hands of Jem Harthouse, is for Louisa to live at home the rest of her days. She will never be happy with another man or have the joy of children, though Dickens hints she will find joy in playing with Sissy's future children.

 

Stephen Blackpool, too, is damned to unhappiness in this life as a result of his marriage. The girl who seemed so sweet when he married her many years ago becomes, by a gradual process, a depraved drunk who is the misery of his life. She periodically returns to Coketown to haunt Stephen and is, as he sees it, the sole barrier to the happiness he might have had in marrying Rachael. Mrs. Sparsit (an elderly lady who lives with Mr. Bounderby for some time) was also unhappily married, which is how she came to be Mr. Bounderby's companion before he marries Louisa.

 

Femininity

The best, most good characters of Hard Times are women. Stephen Blackpool is a good man, but his love, Rachael, is an "Angel". Sissy Jupe can overcome even the worst intentions of Jem Harthouse with her firm and powerfully pure gaze. Louisa, as disadvantaged as she is by her terrible upbringing, manages to get out of her crisis at the last minute by fleeing home to her father for shelter, in contrast to her brother, Tom, who chooses to commit a life-changing crime in his moment of crisis. Through these examples, the novel suggests that the kindness and compassion of the female heart can improve what an education of "facts" and the industrialisation has done to children and to the working middle class.

 

Still, not all the women in the novel are paragons of goodness. Far from it. Mrs. Sparsit is a comic example of femininity gone wrong. She cannot stand being replaced by Louisa when Bounderby marries, and watches the progression of the affair between Louisa and Jem Harthouse with glee. As she attempts to catch them in the act of eloping (and ultimately fails), she is a cruel, ridiculous figure. Stephen Blackpool's wife, meanwhile, is bleakly portrayed as a hideous drunken prostitute.

 

So while the novel holds women up as potentially able to overcome the dehumanising effects of industrialisation and fact-based education, those women in the novel who do not fill this role, who have slipped from the purity embodied by Sissy and Rachael beyond even the empty-heartedness of Louisa, are presented as both pathetically comic and almost demonic. Women in the novel seem like a potential cure to the perils of industrialisation, but also the most at peril from its corruption.

'The Color Purple' characterisation

Characters

Celie – The novel's protagonist, at the beginning of the novel Celie is quiet, passive, and able to express herself only through letters to God. As a teenager she is repeatedly raped by her father (later revealed to be her stepfather), Pa, and gives birth to two children, Olivia and Adam, whom her stepfather gives away and who are raised by a missionary couple. Celie is then married off to Mr. _____, who wants her only for her work ethic and regularly beats her. Celie tries to protect her sister, Nettie, and helps her to run away first from Pa and then from Mr. ____ when both try to rape her, too, at different times. Celie's attempts to get free of the men in her life, to discover her sexuality and to learn to love (both primarily through the female singer Shug Avery), to gain both her social and emotional independence, to find spiritual satisfaction and connection to God, and to find Nettie form the drama of the book, which is constructed as a series of letters between Celie and God, and between Celie and Nettie.

 

Nettie – Celie's more attractive younger sister. Forced to leave first her own home when Pa turns his sexual attention to her and then Mr. _____'s house after he makes sexual advances toward her, Nettie ends up helping out in the household of Reverend Samuel and his wife Corrine. The three of them, and the couple's adopted children Adam and Olivia (who are Celie's biological children), travel to Africa to serve as missionaries to the Olinka people. There, Nettie becomes educated and gains a new spiritual understanding of the world that mirrors Celie's own, and later marries Samuel after Corrine dies of disease. Nettie is later reunited with her sister, and she, as step-mother to Adam and Olivia, introduces the children to their biological mother at the novel's end.

 

Mr. _____ (Albert) – An abusive husband who emotionally and physically abuses Celie in order to control her. He carries on a relationship with the singer Shug throughout much of their marriage. He has multiple children by multiple women, but his overriding love is for Shug. After both Shug and Celie leave him, Mr. _____ realises how much he depended on them and how cruelly he acted toward Celie in particular. He "finds religion" and apologises to Celie, and they close out the novel as friends; Mr. gives Celie a purple frog to symbolise their new friendship.

 

Shug Avery – A singer who is considered a "nasty woman" by those in the community, because she has relationships with numerous men, Shug becomes friends (and, later, lovers) with Celie, teaching Celie about sexuality, love, and spirituality in the process. She also carries on a long-standing relationship with Mr. _____, who is married to Celie for much of that time. After leaving Celie, with whom she was living in Memphis, for "one last fling" with a young man named Germaine, Shug returns to Celie and lives in her home in Georgia.

 

Pa (Alphonso) – Celie's sexually-abusive father, Pa is later revealed to be Celie's stepfather, meaning that Celie can inherit her biological father's house and dry-goods business after Pa's death, and that the children she bore as a result of Pa's sexual abuse were not the product of incest.

 

Sofia – A strong-minded and physically strong woman, and first wife of Harpo. She does not brook any discrimination from white people or physical or other efforts to control her by men, Sofia is sent to prison for fighting the (white) mayor and his wife. She later serves as maid in the mayor's house for almost twelve years, helping to raise his children. Sofia then returns to Celie's home, where her own children with Harpo no longer recognise her.

 

Harpo – Mr. _____'s oldest son, who is raised by Celie. Harpo is an essentially good man, but he drives Sofia, his first wife, away by trying to get her to "mind" (or obey) him. Harpo later marries a woman named Squeak, or Mary Agnes, and opens a jukejoint (bar) on his property in Georgia.

 

Squeak – Harpo's second wife, Squeak begins the novel as a physically weak and unimposing woman, who comes into her own over the course of the novel. She later leaves Harpo to run off with Grady, Shug's husband, in order to have a singing career. Squeak then returns to Celie's home just before the novel's end.

 

Buster Broadnax – Sofia's husband after Harpo, Buster is a prizefighter who has Sofia's best interests at heart. He helps to raise their children when Sofia is in prison and when she is working as maid to the mayor's family.

 

Grady – Husband to Shug, Grady is never trusted by Celie or by Mr. _____. It is later revealed that he runs off to Panama with Squeak, in order to work on a marijuana farm.

 

The Mayor and Miss Millie – The white mayor of the small town near Celie's and Mr.'s property. The Mayor, along with his wife Millie, are genteel and racist, and are the master and mistress of the home in which Sofia works for nearly a dozen years.

 

Eleanor Jane, Stanley Earl, and Reynolds – Eleanor Jane, the mayor's daughter, becomes close to Sofia, the woman who raised her. Sofia is civil to Eleanor's husband Stanley Earl, but Sofia refuses to gush and dote upon Reynolds, their son, explaining to Eleanor that she (Sofia) has already been made to care for a white family that is not hers, at the expense of caring for her own family.

Samuel – A reverend, married to Corrine. Kind and good, Samuel adopts two children, Olivia and Adam, who are given to him by Pa (and who turn out to be Celie's children). He and his wife also take in Nettie after she flees from Mr. _____'s house, not realising that she is the children's aunt. He travels with his wife, two children, and Nettie, to Africa, where he serves as a missionary to the Olinka. After his wife's death, Samuel marries Nettie, and the entire family travels back to Georgia to reunite with Celie.

 

Corrine – Samuel's wife, Corrine doubts, until just before her death, that Samuel is telling the truth about the children—Corrine believes that Samuel and Nettie had an affair, and that Olivia and Adam are therefore Samuel and Nettie's biological children. Corrine finally believes Nettie, however, before she succumbs to her illness and dies among the Olinka.

 

Adam – Nettie's stepson and Celie's son, Adam grows up in Africa, raised by Nettie, Samuel, and Corrine. After the Olinka woman he loves, Tashi, undergoes the ritual facial scarring of her tribe, and then is ashamed of having done so, he undergoes the same scarring. He marries Tashi before moving back to the United States with his family.

 

Olivia – Adam's sister, Olivia is recognised by Celie early in the novel as being her biological daughter when she spots her with Corrine in a store, but Olivia is raised by Samuel, Corrine, and Nettie, and is not reunited with Celie until the very end of the book.

 

Tashi – An Olinka girl educated in the Western manner, Tashi elects to undergo the ritual female circumcision and face scarring of the Olinka, then feels ashamed of having done so. She ends the novel by marrying Adam and moving to the United States with him, Nettie, and Samuel.

 

Henrietta and Suzie Q. – Squeak and Harpo's children, Henrietta and Suzie Q. are raised largely by Sofia. Suzie Q. is a gifted singer, and Henrietta suffers from sickle-cell anemia, and is nursed by Sofia and the rest of the family.

 

Bub and Mr.'s other children – Bub and Mr.'s other children are considered "rotten" by Celie. They are "bad seeds," and they disappear midway through the novel; Bub is always in trouble with the law, and the others merely run away.

 

Catherine – Tashi's mother, Catherine does not approve of the Western-style education that Tashi receives from Samuel and Corrine, and eventually goes to live with Tashi among the mbeles, or Africans resisting British rule, in the jungle.

 

Miss Beasley – Nettie and Celie's teacher, Miss Beasley pleads with Pa early in the novel to let Celie attend school; but, finding out that Celie is pregnant, Miss Beasley breaks off her protests.

 

Kate and Carrie – Mr. _____'s sisters, Kate and Carrie help Celie to shop for clothing, since Mr. _____ provides her with almost none at all.

 

Jack and Odessa – Odessa is Sofia's sister, who helps to raise Sofia's family when Sofia is working as a maid to the mayor. Jack is Odessa's husband.

Daisy – Pa's final wife, Daisy is very young at the time of their marriage—not more than fifteen.

 

Germaine – Shug has a final fling with Germaine, a young man who settles in Arizona, on a Native American reservation, where he hopes to teach those who live there.

 

Doris – An Englishwoman who travelled to Africa to serve as a missionary. Doris meets Samuel and Nettie on a boat back to England, and shows to them her African grandchildren, much to the scandal of others on the boat.

 

Celie and Nettie's mother – After the death of her husband who is lynched by a gang of white men, Celie and Nettie's mother falls into a deep depression. She eventually marries Pa, and never tells the girls that Pa is not their actual father. As she lies depressed in bed, Pa rapes Celie. She dies early in the story.

 

 

 

'The Color Purple' symbols

Symbols

Purple

The novel, of course, is called 'The Color Purple', and though the colour itself does not appear in many places throughout the text, it is clear that purple is associated with Celie, and with Celie's transformation from a young girl to a mature woman. As Alice Walker writes in a preface to the novel, purple "is always a surprise but is found everywhere in nature." From the beginning, Celie shows that purple is her favourite colour—she asks Kate, Mr.'s sister, to buy her clothing and shoes in purple, but they end up being too expensive. When Celie returns to Georgia, after having lived with Shug in a romantic relationship, and having started her own pant-making business, Mr. carves for Celie a purple frog, symbolizing a comment Celie made to Mr. long after her relationship with Shug, saying that men have always reminded her of frogs. Just as Celie always possessed the inner strength necessary to allow her strike out on her own and to break free of Mr.'s and Pa's influence, the colour purple is found in nature, in flowers especially, yet it seems an impossible joy, something that ought not to be there—and an indicator of God's influence on earth.

•Look for the red text to track where Purple appears in: Letter 12, Letter 89

God

God and Spirituality is a theme of the novel, but God, as discussed primarily by Celie and Shug, functions as a symbol for a far greater, and more diffuse, model of religious experience. At first, Celie believes that God and Jesus are white men. But Shug helps Celie to realise that this, itself, is a symbolic conception of God, one that has been created to suit dominant white interests. Shug says that God can be anything—a feeling of joy or connection with another person, or with nature—and Celie eventually comes to realise that God (whom she addressed in letters for a large part of the novel) is not so much a person or thing as a means toward happiness and fulfilment. It is revealed, coincidentally, that Nettie has developed a similar conception of the divine during her time with the Olinka.

Themes of 'The Color Purple'

Themes

 

God and Spirituality

The first words written by Celie, the novel's protagonist, are "Dear God," and the novel ends with a letter, the salutation of which reads, "Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God." This encapsulates The Color Purple's relationship to religion and spirituality: a transition from a belief in a single God, an old white man in a long beard, to a God that exists all around, and is a part of human happiness. Celie begins writing letters to God in order to survive the her father's sexual abuse; she later comes to view God as an outgrowth of nature's beauty, after Shug convinces her that God is more than what white people say, and what church teachings confirm.

Although Shug is not typically religious, she believes strongly that God wants people to be happy, and that God, too, wants to be loved, just as people do. Nettie serves as a missionary to the Olinka people, intending to spread Christianity, but realises, like her sister, that God is more pervasive, more bound up in nature than some Christian teaching suggests. Even Mr. _____ comes to realise that he behaved evilly as a young man, and his growing belief in the "wonder" of God's creation makes him a better person, and a friend to Celie. Nettie's return to Celie, at the novel's end, confirms that the beauty of family togetherness is one manifestation of God's power on earth.

Race and Racism

The novel takes place in two distinct settings—rural Georgia and a remote African village—both suffused with problems of race and racism. Celie believes herself to be ugly in part because of her very dark skin. Sofia, after fighting back against the genteel racism of the mayor and his wife, ends up serving as maid to that family, and as surrogate mother to Eleanor, who does not initially recognizs the sacrifices Sofia has been forced to make. In general, very few career paths are open to the African Americans in the novel: for the men, farming is the main occupation, although Harpo manages to open a bar. For women, it seems only possible to serve as a mother, or to perform for a living, to sing as Squeak and Shug Avery do.

 

In Africa, the situation Nettie, Samuel, Corrine, Adam, Tashi, and Olivia experience is not that much different. Nettie recalls that the ancestors of the Olinka, with whom she lives, sold her ancestors into slavery in America. The Olinka view African Americans with indifference. Meanwhile the English rubber workers, who build roads through the village and displace the Olinka from their ancient land, have very little concern for that people's history in Africa. The British feel that, because they are developing the land, they "own" it, and the African people who have lived there for centuries are merely "backward" natives. It is only at the very end of the novel, after Samuel, Nettie, and their family have returned from Africa, to Celie's home in Georgia, that Celie and Nettie's entire family is able to come together and dine—a small gift, and something that would be considered completely normal for the white families of that time period, whose lives had not been ripped apart by the legacy of slavery and poverty.

Men, Women, and Gender Roles

The novel is also an extended meditation on the nature of men, women, and their expected gender roles. In the beginning, Celie is expected to serve her abusive father, and, later, her husband Mr. _____, and Nettie, not wanting to do either, runs away. But Nettie sacrifices the job generally reserved for women—motherhood—in order to educate herself and work for Samuel and Corrine during their missionary labours in Africa. Celie, meanwhile, has two children, whom Nettie then raises in Africa, coincidentally—Celie only leaves behind the drudgery of housework when Shug comes to live with her and Mr. _____ and begins to teach Celie about her body and about other ways of living, outside the control of men. Celie and Squeak, Harpo's second wife, end up living with Shug in Memphis, and Celie is able to start her pants-making company.

The men in the novel, however, experience a different trajectory. It is expected that black men of this time, especially in the South, work in the fields, and that women obey them absolutely. But after Shug and then Celie leave him behind, Mr. _____ realises just how much he took for granted and how much he, and his son Harpo, have relied on the work of women throughout their lives. Similarly, in Africa, Nettie manages both to achieve the gender role initially expected of her (by marrying the widower Samuel), and keeps working and forging her own path in life, eventually spending over twenty years as a missionary in Africa.

 

The end of the novel, then, celebrates both the continuity of family, populated both by strong female characters and repentant male ones, and the fact that "families," and the roles within them, are fluid, often overlapping, and part of a long arc toward equality and greater understanding, even if that arc is often dotted with tragedy, abuse, and neglect.

Violence and Suffering

Violence and suffering in 'The Color Purple' are typically depicted as part of a greater cycle of tragedy taking place both on the family level and on a broader social scale. Celie is raped by her stepfather and beaten for many years by her husband, only to have Shug Avery intervene on her behalf. Sofia is nearly beaten to death by white police officers after pushing a white family; she nearly dies in prison. Nettie is almost raped by her stepfather and by Mr. _____, and must run away in order to protect herself. Harpo tries, unsuccessfully, to beat and control Sofia, his first wife, and he beats Squeak until she leaves him for Grady (though Squeak returns to Celie's home at the end of the novel). These cycles of violence are repeated across the South: Celie's biological father and uncles were lynched by whites jealous of their business success, and there is always the threat that, if black people agitate too much for their rights, they will be struck down by the white people who control the local and state government.

In Africa, too, this violence occurs within the local culture and in the relation between whites and blacks. Men in the Olinka village have absolute control over their wives, and a scarring ritual takes place for all women going through permanently, leaving their faces permanently marked. The white British rubber dealers who take over the Olinka land end up killing a great many in the village, without concern for the humanity or customs of the Olinka, who have lived there for many years. But despite all this violence and suffering, there is a core of hope in the novel: the hope that Celie and Nettie might be reunited. It is this hope that, eventually, stops the cycle of violence, at least within Celie's family, and enables the reunion of many of the family members in Georgia at the novel's end.

Self-Discovery

The novel is, ultimately, a journey of self-discovery for Celie, and for other characters. Celie begins the novel as a passive, quiet young girl, perplexed by her own pregnancy, by her rape at the hands of Pa, and her ill-treatment by Mr. _____. Slowly, after meeting Shug and seeing her sister run away, Celie develops practical skills: she is a hard worker in the fields, she learns how to manage a house and raise children, and she meets other inspiring women, including Sofia, who has always had to fight the men in her life. Further, she discovers her own sexuality and capacity to love through her developing romance with Shug. Eventually, Celie discovers that her sister Nettie has been writing to her all along, and this, coupled with Shug's support, allows Celie to confront Mr. _____, to move to Memphis with Shug, to begin her own pants company, and, eventually, to make enough money to be independent. Celie's luck begins to change: she inherits her biological father's estate, allowing her greater financial freedom, and she manages to repair her relationship with Mr. _____ (he gives her a purple frog as a symbol of his recognition of his earlier bad behaviour), and create a kind of family with Mr. _____ Shug, Harpo, Sofia, Squeak, Nettie, and her own children.

 

Nettie's arc is also one of self-discovery. Nettie received more years of schooling than did Celie, and Nettie has seen the world, working as a missionary in Africa, and eventually marrying a kind and intelligent man. But Nettie also realises that she can balance her independence, and her desire to work, with a loving married life that also includes two stepchildren—Celie's children, Olivia and Adam. Indeed, it is the arrival of this extended family on Celie's land at the end of the novel that signals the last stage in both Celie's and Nettie's journey of self-discovery. The sisters have found themselves, and now, as the novel closes, they have found each other.

HISTORY - John Burnside

This is potentially the hardest poem in the collection.   As an introduction, and some help in understanding it, try this: Wet sand and gasoline .  I have also posted some links on Ms Harte's annotation page as well.  There has been some adverse critical reaction to this poem, which you can read in the linked articles.

Burnside has been described as being interested in the liminal - which literally means threshold or doorway, so in-between and transitional states of being.  This could be understood as what lies between reality and imagination, or our concepts of time (which is not fixed, but changes constantly), between the names we give things and the thing itself.

The poem is written in combinations of loose iambic pentametres and tetrametres.   The original did not have the same punctuation nor line lengths - these seem to have been edited by Burnside for publication in the Forward anthology.  Most noticeable is the removal of punctuation - particularly commas, which make this version flow more seamlessly but also makes its meaning more obscure. It reads as a series of linked thoughts which range between 9/11, the child on the beach and the kite flyers whilst reflecting on the nature of reality and time through an evocation of the landscape.

If I had to compare this poem to another, I would suggest Fox in the Museum in exploring Time, The Lammas Hireling or Guiseppe as exploring an alternative reality, or Out of the Bag on the power of imagination, or poems on Identity, such as A Minor Role or even An Easy Passage, as the latter is about the transition between child and woman.

St Andrews: West Sands; September 2001[LC1] 

Today

             as we[LC2]  flew the kites

- the sand spinning off in ribbons[LC3]  along the beach

and that gasoline smell from Leuchars[LC4]  gusting across

the golf links[LC5] ;

                         the tide far out

and quail-grey[LC6]  in the distance;

                                                 people

jogging, or stopping to watch

as the war planes[LC7]  cambered and turned

in the morning light –

today

             - with the news[LC8]  in my mind, and the muffled dread

of what may come –

                                    I knelt down in the sand

with Lucas[LC9] 

                gathering shells

and pebbles

               finding evidence of life in all this

driftwork[LC10] :

            snail shells; shreds of razorfish;

smudges of weed and flesh on tideworn stone.

At times I think what makes us who we are[LC11] 

is neither kinship[LC12]  nor our given states

but something lost between the world we own

and what we dream about[LC13]  behind the names[LC14] 

on days like this

                        our lines raised in the wind

our bodies fixed and anchored to the shore[LC15] 

and though we are confined by property[LC16] 

what tethers us to gravity and light

has most to do with distance and the shapes[LC17] 

we find in water

                        reading from the book[LC18] 

of silt and tides[LC19] :

                         the rose or petrol blue[LC20] 

of jellyfish and sea anemone

combining with a child's

first nakedness[LC21] .

Sometimes I am dizzy with the fear

of losing everything - the sea, the sky,

all living creatures, forests, estuaries[LC22] :

we trade so much to know the virtual[LC23] 

we scarcely register the drift and tug

of other bodies

                        scarcely apprehend

the moment as it happens: shifts of light

and weather

                        and the quiet, local forms

of history[LC24] : the fish lodged in the tide[LC25] 

beyond the sands;

                        the long insomnia

of ornamental carp in public parks

captive and bright

                        and hung in their own

slow-burning

                        transitive gold[LC26] ;

                                                jamjars of spawn[LC27] 

and sticklebacks[LC28] 

                                    or goldfish carried home

from fairgrounds[LC29] 

                        to the hum of radio[LC30] ;

but this is the problem: how to be alive

in all this gazed-upon and cherished world

and do no harm[LC31] 

                        a toddler on a beach

sifting wood and dried weed from the sand

and puzzled by the pattern on a shell

his parents on the dune slacks with a kite

plugged into the sky[LC32] 

                                     all nerve and line[LC33] :

patient; afraid[LC34] ; but still, through everything

attentive to the irredeemable[LC35] .

---

 [LC1]The poem was written within a few weeks of 9/11 and this was its original title.  The “History” came later.  It is not clear that Burnside means “History” as we would understand it.  He has an approach to time and the “now” which is peculiar to him.

 [LC2]The “parents” referred to later, presumably him as well.

 [LC3]Refers to the patterns made by waves in the sand as the tide goes out – like ripples. *amendment -  on reflection this is referring to the dry surface sand being blown by the wind

 [LC4]RAF Leuchars – an airbase nearby from which the smell of aviation fuel is coming

 [LC5]Royal St Andrews – a Championship golf-course. Burnside is quite anti-golf courses. Not that it is relevant.

 [LC6]A quail is a small game bird

 [LC7]RAF on manoeuvres.  There was increased activity in the weeks after 9/11 in case of more attacks worldwide.  The use of “war” reminds of the war on terror which started with 9/11

 [LC8]9/11.  “Muffled dread” reflects the feeling that many people had that this was the start of something bigger and potentially worse.  Which of course it was.

 [LC9]His son

 [LC10]Echoing the job of the emergency services who sifted through the wreckage of the Twin Towers to find remains of victims

 [LC11]Gives us our identity

 [LC12]Our families and nationality/genes – what we inherit.  Possibly also a deliberate pun on states as in United States

 [LC13]Burnside is interested in the spaces between reality and imagination, between what we perceive actively and what lies just beyond our grasp.  There are many images in the poem of spaces between

 [LC14]Giving names to things is how we make them real.  He suggests that there is something else beyond naming

 [LC15]“lines” are the kite strings – the space between us on the ground and the kite in the sky – hence the space between

 [LC16]Property as in what we own materially, but also as in the properties of matter – what makes us solid

 [LC17]Tethered means tied down, as the kite is tethered by the string to the person holding it.  Gravity and light are opposites – one of the earth, the other of the sky – and he is suggesting that we inhabit the space in between - distance and shapes

 [LC18]The natural world teaches us

 [LC19]Tides are movements – they are not real in the sense that an object is real.  They are a concept based on our ideas about time

 [LC20]Startling colours and images of beauty

 [LC21]All suggestive of fragility and innocence

 [LC22]Features of the landscape he is in. Tangible realities which is what we hold onto.

 [LC23] [LC23]The nearly real – we think things that we have named and are made of matter or have properties (see the words used in the previous stanza) are real – but they are not.  There are other bodies – things which are intangible – like tides, which drift and tug, and the shifting patterns of light and weather - that we should be aware of as they impact us even if we do not recognise it.

 [LC24]We think of history as time passed – but it is in fact being created in the present – in the space between the past and the future.

 [LC25]Lodged suggests held timelessly

 [LC26]The carp appear to be caught between sleeping and waking and also held in the water. Transitive means “in transit” – being carried between one place and another – presumably here between life and death.  Ornamental carp are big goldfish.

 [LC27]Another transitive state – between egg and frog. Also symbolic of potential – something which is not yet

 [LC28]Small fish which children catch to bring home to keep

 [LC29]Goldfish used to be given away as prizes at fairgrounds

 [LC30]Radios were/are permanently on in homes that listen to the radio.  This may be a memory of his own childhood.

 [LC31]He seems to be asking how we can interact with this world we live in without altering it – he is a keen Eco politician.

 [LC32]Plugged suggests that they are firmly attached (to what they understand/know)

 [LC33]Nerve and line suggest not just the kite but also a fisherman

 [LC34]The parents are patient as they continue to fly the kite for their children, but they are also afraid for them as their fragility has been made evident by the events of 9/11.

 [LC35]The parents are aware of and watching the children?  Irredeemable means something which cannot be saved, in the biblical sense, or paid back in the monetary sense.  So there is a suggestion that the parents are aware that they cannot save their children (from horror/death/time?) and that time itself cannot be recovered or bought. 

Coincidentally, I have just listened to an extract from TS Eliot's "The Four Quartets" - Burnt Norton, (a notoriously difficult poem) which also talks about time being "unredeemable".  Which supports the interpretation of the last line.  It is unlikely that Burnside is not referencing Eliot.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.