READING MODULE 8By: GASPAR JULIO NAVARRO AMADOR11th / MAY / 06
SUBJECT & POEM: Men & Women, Are we so different?
Simon Armitage & Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead’s ‘Why I Gave You The Chinese
Plate’
Simon Armitage’s ‘Ice’
Why I Gave
You The Chinese Plate
1 I know how you feel
2 about ladies
that dark and slim
3 and quiet and unlike
me.
4 And chinoiserie.
5 I’m not
sorry.
6 Neither are you what
7 I’d have
thought I wanted.
9 under a surface finely crazed
with cracks
10 the silks of this painted girl
instead
11 of all the dark girls you’ll never have
12 as long as you keep wanting me to love.
13 Goldgreen, plum and jade
15 So choose
16 where you’ll
hang it
17 on the wall we might tear down.
Liz Lochhead
(Dreaming Frankenstein*)
Ice
1As if the window that will not
close
2 and the bath water being barely
hot enough
3 and the wet towels
4 were not enough to worry over.
5 But your favourite dress
6 is damp
and unironed;
7 You haven’t
a stitch to wear
8 and I am to blame.
9 Now you will turn the house
inside out.
10 Now you will tear through the
wardrobe
11 more shoes than Mrs. Marcos,
hangers
12 relieved of their shirts and
blouses
13 till the armchair is constrited
14 with fabrics and colours
15 and the carpet alive
16 with cuffs, sleeves
and collars.
17 I wait outside
18 by the fractures pipe
19 on the gable end
20 as the cream of your bath water
21 fids his way along the street
22and turns the corner.
23 Already its edges
24 are beginning to harden.
Simon Armitage
(Kid*)
In this paper the main focus is to
differentiate between men and women. The context in which these two authors are
classified matches with the last stage of the twentieth century. Although both
authors are contemporaries, there are some differences that can be decisive
when they write. These two authors write about very different things because
their worries, fears and points of view change from men to women. Another
difference is that Liz Lochhead’ book Dreaming
Frankenstein was published in 1984 and Simon
Agmitage’s one Kid was published in
1992. The gap between both publications would have not been a matter of
question in the 19th century, for instance, but in this last stage
of the 20th century, there can be deep changes in society as well as
in politics, economy, etc. in ten years of space. This is the reason why
Lochhead is more concerned about women’s rights in a society in which
chauvinism and male preponderance is leading the world. Contrasting with
Lochhead, there is Armitage, who with a direct style, natural manner and
spontaneity talks about things that can be considered
to be not definitely trivial but without a deep human concern.
Thus,
there have been chose two poems that although describe a usual situation as it
can be the talk or the discussion of a couple, both authors give a vision,
which is far from one another. (Ref 1). In Liz Lochhead’s poem ‘Why I Gave You The Chinese Plate’, every particular aspect is generalized
in the sense of a part, which is made to represent the whole, or vice versa.
Therefore, what the author thinks about her partner, this is
applied to every man and vice versa.
The
title highlights itself the ideology of the author. Lochhead is
considered a feminist and condemns critically masculinity from a sexual
point of view. Her poem describes a usual action between a couple,
the giving of a present. What Lochhead gives is a Chinese plate, which has a
painting of a ‘dark and slim and quiet’ woman (line 2-3). On the one hand, this
vision stereotypes the kind of woman desired by men. On the other hand, the
author criticises women’s aesthetic world.
Lochhead
shows herself and the rest of women, as comprehensible and concerned and places
her partner and in general every man, as incapable to understand women’s world,
as in:
‘I know how you feel’
(Line 1)
The
author criticises the stereotypic men’s vision of the ideal woman when
describing her as ‘dark and slim and quiet’ (line 2-3), and at the same time
Lochhead places herself outside of that categorization, where she says, ‘unlike
me’ (line 3). The author describes that aesthetic world as ‘chinoiserie’.
In
‘I’m not sorry’ (line 5), the author means that she is not worried of not being
like that stereotypical woman which men desire, and from this frustrating point
of view she attacks men when she says
‘Neither are you what
I’d have thought I wanted’
(Lines 6-7)
In
the lines 8-9, there is a metaphorical description of what the author’s partner
sees in the image of the plate, which is an illusion of something unachievable,
fragile and broken:
‘In a landscape somewhere else
under a surface finely crazed
with cracks’
In
lines 10-11-12 the author tells her partner that if he
wants her to love him, he will have to keep just that image in the plate of his
ideal woman instead of all those dark, slim women.
The
author continues with a description of these women, which are comparable to
‘goldgreen and jade’ (line 13), in the sense of youth, ‘plum’, in the sense of
something juicy and desirable.
In
the last three lines (15-16-17), there is the opportunity to decide for men
about the place to hang that plate, which will be hung on a wall that will be ‘tear down’ anyway. This is a destructive metaphor, through
which the author recognizes the inevitable ever ending of relationships.
(Ref 2)
In
Simon Armitage’ poem, what is described is as well as in lochhead’s poem a real
and usual situation. Armitage is characterized for his
spontaneity and natural manner language, which humbly reaches all kind of
public. The themes that he develops are not, at first glance, so transcendent as in Liz Lochhead, but it is exactly this
conscious simplicity what makes Simon Armitage’s poetry so successful. In his
style, the accurate descriptions like cinema scenes and the visual impacts are
of those more characteristic. In this poem ’Ice’, there is a description of a
daily situation in which chaos, in a domestic and simple way, takes over the
scene. There are two points of view in the poem corresponding to the sex of the
characters, man and woman. The author who obviously gives his point of view
represents the man. The woman is actually presupposed
due to the kind of clothing and situations described through the poem, which
probably correspond to women’s everyday life. The poem is seen from the man’s
point of view, who watches how the situation develops, and accepts it resigned
and passively. This refers to the title ‘Ice’, which has a connotation of
coldness, emptiness, death of sentiments, etc.
(Ref 3)
The
poem schematic argument is divided into three
sections.
The
first section corresponds to the first and the second stanzas, where the chaos is described accurately. In the house the couple
live there is a terrible mess, and it is represented by things that work
in the opposite way they are supposed to work. That is, the upside-down world,
as in:
‘window
that will not close’ (line 1)
‘water
being barely hot’ (line 2)
‘wet
towels’ (line 3)
‘your
favourite dress’ (line 5)
‘is damp
and unironed’ (line 6)
The
outcome of this situation is that the author’s partner has nothing to wear and
all is because it is his fault.
The
second argument section of the poem corresponds with the actions that the
author’s partner will be taken after the preceding
situation.
In
line 9-10 there is a parallelism, which shows the reiteration of the situation.
It means the action that follows the preceding mess:
‘Now you will turn the house inside
out.
Now you will tear through the
wardrobe’
The
ironic tone is present through the whole poem and it is
highlighted in line 11
‘more
shoes than Mrs. Marcos’
The
number of actions increases line by line, until we reach the 5th
stanza. From here the ending of the poem and the third section explains the
title of the poem. In line 17 ‘I wait outside’, the author places himself far
from the domestic sphere, were the action is taking place. This symbolizes
quietness and calm. There is a contrast in:
by the fractures pipe
on the gable end
as the cream of your bath
water
fids his way along the street
and turns the corner
The
comparison between the cream of the author’s bath and the way it disappears,
with the feeling of the author at the climax of the action and the change of
state from stress to release when he is far from his partner.
The
last two lines show the hardening of the author feelings and the consistent
change from warm and passion to ice and coldness.
(Ref 4)
In
both poems the relationship between men and women appears to be very different,
in terms of behaviour, traditions, pressures of society, daily life,
jealousness, etc. The general tendency is that each sex exposes her or his
ideas supporting their own point of view. In the first poem, the vision of the
relationship is seen under a feminist radical point of
view. The second poem is seen from a daily and boring
and repetitive point of view. Both critics are as respectable as any other, even though the clash of sexes causes the perception
that men do not understand women and vice versa, and there is no possible way
to change this situation unless there was a Great Sexes Shift.
REFERENCES
*
Liz Lochhead, Dreaming Frankenstein, Polygon, 2003
*
Simon Armitage, Kid, Faber and Faber, 2002
1 - British Broadcasting Corporation © 2001-2006, BBC
– Writing
10/05/2006
2
- Jennie Renton, National Library of
http://www.nls.uk/writestuff/index.html
10/05/2006
3
- David Godwin Associates, Simon Armitage Web Site,
2006
http://www.simonarmitage.co.uk/
10/05/2006
4
- ZigZag Education and Computing Centre Publications,
Simon Armitage –AQA Anthology for GCSE, 2006
http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/anthology/simonarmitage.htm
10/05/2006