Nostalgia, Regret, and Futility – Exploring the Tone and Language of Tennyson’s “Ulysses"

“How dull it is to pause, to make an end / To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!” (22-23) Thus speaks the aged Greek hero in Tennyson’s famous poem “Ulysses” as the king contemplates the futility of life, bemoaning the passing of his youth. Although widely celebrated as a majestic piece that exhorts us to press onward in the face of grief, “Ulysses” contains yet a deeper meaning that Tennyson suggests using both the poem’s language and its tone – underneath the surface, “Ulysses” is a lament that muses with regret upon the vanity of a life wasted chasing after adventure. As Charles C. Walcutt of Michigan State Normal College writes, “The voice which speaks is not that of a trumpet, clear-throated and vigorous; it is the mournful sighing of strings” (Walcutt, 1946). Tennyson conveys his theme of regret using the following literary tools – tone and word choice.

             Tone is a powerful element of “Ulysses” – Tennyson portrays the attitudes and overall character of his poem using the aged warrior’s expression of feeling. Throughout its development, the hero of “Ulysses” articulates a broad range of emotions, from his initial frustrated reflections on his current situation, to his final determination to experience one last adventure before death – from “Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole / Unequal laws unto a savage race, / That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. / I cannot rest from travel” (3-6) to “ ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world…To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars, until I die” (56-61)

In the opening lines of “Ulysses,” Tennyson paints his readers a picture of an elderly Greek king sitting by an empty fireplace, lamenting the monotony of his current life. This emotion of frustration however quickly gives way to nostalgia, as Ulysses muses fondly upon his past adventures:

            Much have I seen and known, - cities of men

            And manners, climates, councils, governments,

            Myself not least, but honored of them all, -

            And drink delight of battle with my peers,

            Far on the singing plains of windy Troy. (13-17)

Then Ulysses turns to reflecting upon his son Telemachus and upon the differences between their characters – he observes that Telemachus seems contented with his lot governing the people of Ithaca, while Ulysses still feels restlessness in his own heart; “He works his work, I mine” (43). Ulysses next passes from thoughts of his son to contemplations of death and old age. His attitude towards death is similar to that of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes: “This also is vanity. For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool!” (Ecc. 2:15-16). Likewise Ulysses exclaims, “As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life / Were all too little, and of one to me” (24-25), implying that just because he breathes doesn’t mean he feels alive – in fact, he feels his death drawing near, and the thought that “Death closes all” (51) fills him with a growing sense of despair. Ulysses has come to the same realization as the Preacher – no matter how many great deeds he’s accomplished during his lifetime, death is the inevitable end of all men. There is no escape from mortality.

The last emotion expressed by Ulysses in this poem is one of renewed, grim, and almost reckless determination to experience one final adventure before death overtakes him: “Come, my friends, / ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world” (56-57). Tennyson enforces the despairing tone of his poem with this dramatic conclusion, in which Ulysses exhorts his fellow-mariners to join him once more on a sea-voyage. He cries,

            Tho’ much is taken much abides; and tho’

            We are not now that strength which in old days

            Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are (65-67)

The reader is never told whether or not Ulysses actually carries out his plan for a journey – he may have simply been dreaming of one last glorious adventure before death. As Walcutt states, “The effect of the poem is nearer to being an evocation of the state of mind of an aged warrior who dreams of former glory than it is to being the actual beginning of a new heroic quest” (Walcutt, 1946). The 16^th century Italian poet Dante describes Ulysses’ final journey in his poem The Inferno, and according to Dante’s version, Ulysses and his crew perish a watery death because of the wrath of Zeus: “The poop rose and the bow went down / till the sea closed over us and the light was gone” (130-131). Whether or not Ulysses actually set out on this final adventure and was lost at sea is not revealed in Tennyson’s text, but the expression of Ulysses’ emotion is the same – he senses the futility of his life and is frustrated with the impotence of old age. His solution is to turn to glorious visions of battles and adventures, which he thinks will bring him the happiness he lacks.

            Throughout the poem “Ulysses,” the aged Greek warrior gives voice to a wide array of emotions, ranging from discontentment to nostalgia to hopelessness to grim determination. Tennyson sets the tone of his poem through this expression of attitude, but he also conveys the poem’s deeper themes using word choice and language. There are two specific passages in “Ulysses” where Tennyson’s word choice particularly strengthens the sense of futility and hopelessness of this poem.

            First of all, Tennyson employs the use of metaphor when describing Ulysses’ feelings of helplessness. Ulysses compares himself to an old sword that has seen great deeds in battle but now sits abandoned and rusty with disuse (22-23) and uses the adjectives “dull”, “unburnish’d”, and “gray” to describe his sense of feebleness and age (23-30). He yearns “to follow knowledge like a sinking star” (31). Ulysses’ language and choice of adjectives in this particular passage strengthen the poem’s sense of regret and its message of life’s meaninglessness.

            Towards the end of the poem, Tennyson once again employs an implied metaphor when his hero describes the ending of the day, signifying the closing of his life:

                        The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

                        The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

                        Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

                        ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. (54-57)

Ulysses realizes that, like the long day waning, his life is also drawing to a close. This realization seems almost to frighten him, and he grasps for comfort at the only thing he knows and loves – adventure. Instead of examining himself and apprehending the futility of the things he has spend his life chasing after, his conclusion is that, though “death closes all; but something ere the end, / Some work of noble note, may yet be done, / Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods” (51-53).

         

  The ultimate message of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” is a deep and powerful one, similar to the final conclusion of Ecclesiastes; “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecc. 12:13). The pursuit of anything else in place of God – whether it be money, power, fame, glory in battle, or adventure – is fruitless and devoid of meaning. A life wasted chasing after these things is one that will end in regret and despair, as Tennyson’s Ulysses comes to partially realize. Tennyson conveys this message using his hero’s attitudes, expression of feeling, and choice of language – without God, our lives are meaningless. Without God, we have nothing to turn to when our end draws near and we begin, like Ulysses, to sense the futility of our life’s pursuits. And without God, the prospect of death is a frightening one indeed.

Sources

Dante, A. (2003). The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. (J. Ciardi, Trans.) New York, New York: New American Library.

Lord Tennyson, A. (1950). Ulysses. In P. R. Lieder, R. M. Lovett, & R. K. Root (Eds.), British Poetry and Prose (Third ed., Vol. 2, pp. 445-446). Cambridge, MA, United States: The Riverside Press.

Walcutt, C. C. (1946). TENNYSON, Ulysses. Explicator , IV (28), 3.

My most recent posts are the products of my freshman college assignments - in lit. class this week we had to analyze a particular poem's themes and the poet's methods of communicating those themes. I was pretty excited when I saw that Tennyson was one of the choices. (Because of reasons.) I hope it was as enjoyable to read as it was enjoyable to write. 

I have one more big drama paper due which I would like to share as well... and then I promise I will stop posting my college assignments on my blog. (Maybe.)

Plato, Descartes, and "The Matrix" - A Problem of Philosophy

 

I. Question: What do an ancient Greek philosopher, a seventeenth-century French philosopher/mathematician, and a popular science fiction movie made in the 90s have in common? Answer: All three explore the idea of our world as an illusion, and question the relationship between our senses and reality. 

The most obvious similarity between the movie The Matrix, the cave analogy of Plato, and Descartes’ Meditation, is that all of these works doubt the reality of the world around us and call into question the validity of our sense perceptions. “Let us suppose,” says Descartes, “that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars – namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth-putting of the hands – are merely illusions” (Descartes, 1641, Meditations on First Philosophy). Likewise Plato proposed an interesting hypothetical situation of a cave where men lay bound up in chains, able only to perceive the shadows of figures on the walls as they passed by. Plato concluded that “in every way such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects” (Plato, 514 – 518, The Republic, Book VII). In the 1999 movie The Matrix, a giant computer system has taken over the earth and controls all of humanity’s minds in a virtual reality world. “What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control” (“Orpheus”, The Matrix, Wachowski, 1999). Thus, all three of these sources are asking important questions about our reality; is the world that we perceive as reality actually real? Or is it all simply a dream or a hoax conjured up by some Being who is having a good laugh at our expense? And how do we know for sure? Plato, Descartes, and the makers of The Matrix propose situations in which our minds are being controlled by something outside of ourselves, (whether it be a computer, shadows on a cave wall, or an invisible demon,) that determines what we perceive to be real.

However, though all three of these sources are asking similar questions, it is mainly their way of answering these questions that distinguishes them from each other. The movie The Matrix portrays a society that has been duped and taken over by a computer system, while a small group of dissidents band together to fight its control – while this band recognizes that the world they believed in for so long was not actually reality, they have managed to extricate themselves from the Matrix’s grasp. However in both Plato and Descartes’ hypothetical situations there is no way to escape the prison of our false perceptions, because the entire world that we see and know is one big virtual reality game. Plato describes what would happen if a prisoner in his hypothetical cave was released – “he would find it painful to be so hauled along, and would chafe at it, and when he came out into the light, his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see even one of the things that we call real” – but he does not tell us whether this “real world” consists of our spiritual afterlife or some other world more “real” than this one  (Plato, 514 – 518, The Republic, Book VII). We do not, in fact, ever find out from Plato or Descartes what happens when we “wake up”, so to speak, (if all of the reality we know is simply one fantastic dream.) Imagine how complicated The Matrix’s plot could have become if the rebels found out that the real world to which they had escaped was, as Descartes and Plato proposed, also a grand illusion of our senses?

Thus the main difference between The Matrix, Plato’s cave analogy, and Descartes’ hypothetical “malignant demon” is that while the movie shows a way back into the real world, Descartes and Plato merely throw out the suggestion that we are dreaming or have been duped, and leave us to wonder how and if there is any way to escape back into reality. They suggest that the real world we know is not real at all –“I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity” (Descartes, 1641, Meditations on First Philosophy).  However even Descartes admits that to continue thinking this way is impossible, and is not a practical way to live. 

II. So... which is better: the harshness of reality or the “ignorance is bliss” of illusion?

One of the most famous lines in the movie The Matrix is spoken by the character Cypher as he questions his decision to escape from the Matrix to reality. “I know what you're thinking,” he says to Neo, “'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here…why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?” This is indeed a valid question. If this whole world we know is one big dream why not stay asleep, rather than awaken to a harsh reality that might not turn out to be as comfortable as our dream world? However in God’s eyes, the harshness of reality is always much more important than the ignorance of bliss. This is obvious for two reasons – the very essence of our God’s character, which is truth, and the fact that our lives shouldn’t be determined by physical comfort and blissful illusion alone – we attain to a higher goal.  

First of all, our God is one of truth as it states in Devarim 32:4, “All His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.” To choose a life of lies over one of emet would be to go against the character of the God we serve. There are many ways to vary from the path of truth, and all of them are despised by God. There are six things Hashem hates, among them a lying tongue and a witness who tells lies (Prov. 6:16-19) Clearly it would be wrong in God’s eyes to “take the blue pill” and spend the rest of one’s life living a lie instead of serving Him in truth.

Moreover, the main flaw in Cypher’s thinking in The Matrix is that he came to value the physical pleasures and comforts of the virtual world above the truth, and eventually above his own friends or morals: “You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak] Ignorance is bliss.” Cypher has obviously confused his priorities, leading him to eventually kill some of his teammates and meet a violent end. Our goals in life as religious Jews, however, are not merely to pursue pleasure or seek comfortable lives – they are to serve the God of truth, no matter how difficult or harsh this truth may be. As Socrates and Glaucon conclude: “Socrates: ‘Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them?’ Glaucon: ‘He would indeed’” (Plato, 514 – 518, The Republic, Book VII).

                                                                    

Sources:

Descartes, René. Meditation I of the Things Which We May Doubt. Excerpt from Meditations on First Philosophy. 1641 C.E.

Plato. The Allegory of the Cave. Excerpt from The Republic. Book VII. c. 514 - 518 B.C.E.

Wachowski, Andy, and Lana Wachowski. The Matrix. Directed by Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999.

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” and “The Destructors” – Coming of Age in a World Without G-d

In two short stories, “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence and “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, two young boys struggle to find their place in a cruel, modern world, a world where survival depends upon either luck or destruction, rather than upon G-d and love.  Each of these boys experience adult pressures and both respond in a manner that reflects modernist attitudes and perceptions.  At the peak of their character development, major differences between the two protagonists begin to emerge. Paul, who is motivated by an obsessive desire to make money for his unlucky parents, is merely a child who has burdened himself with pressures beyond his years, pressures which are eventually relieved through his illness and subsequent death.  Trevor, on the other hand, is someone who is much more cynical, destructive, and hopeless in his outlook on life.  He lives in a world that is utterly devoid of love, compassion, and any modicum of concern for others.  Greene resolves Trevor’s conflict, not through illness and death, but rather through the childish and senseless destruction of another human being and his property.

In these two short stories it is immediately evident that the two protagonists, Trevor and Paul, have much in common.  They both seem to be struggling to find their niche in society (Trevor as a member of the Wormsley Common Gang, and Paul as the eldest son in a proud family), and they both struggle with the pressures weighing on them in similar, destructive ways – Trevor in his destruction of Old Misery’s house for no reason, and Paul in his self-destructive frenzy for gambling.  Both Trevor and Paul attempt to manage conflicts and pressures that prove to be too much for them to bear.  Trevor is confronted with the horrible destructiveness of a crime he perpetrated, while Paul valiantly attempts to shoulder the impossible burden of restoring luck and happiness to his family.

Eventually, both boys are confronted with the harsh reality of a world without love.  Trevor muses with an adult, philosophical skepticism: “All this hate and love…it’s soft, it’s hooey.  There’s only things, Blackie.” Paul, after a conversation with his mother about having no money and no luck, jumps on his rocking horse and rides off on a frenzied quest, desperately demanding to be taken where there is luck.  Without G-d, there is no love, and without love, there is no reason not to destroy.  Without love there is only luck, as “The Rocking-Horse Winner” tells us in the opening line; “There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck.  She married for love, and the love turned to dust.”

            There are also several important differences that distinguish the character of Trevor from the character of Paul.  These differences are highlighted by their respective conflicts.  Trevor’s struggle is self-centered and he is primarily concerned with his own status, not only in the gang but also in the modern world.  Paul, on the other hand, is anxious for his family’s financial situation, an anxiety that slowly evolves into a troubling obsession for him as he begins to hear voices whispering in the house, “There must be more money! There must be more money!” Trevor has already been hardened by a society committed to destruction and cruelty, while Paul destroys himself in his futile attempt to fight against the capricious hand of Fate.  Trevor embraces the selfish Darwinist attitude towards survival while Paul tries to fight it, believing that “G-d” has given him luck (yet failing to realize that “luck” is nothing more than a poor substitute for G-d Himself.)

            Two thematic elements evident in both stories are childhood conflict and destruction.  Both narratives focus on children struggling to come to terms with a cruel, modern and godless world.  Both stories also explore the relationship between godlessness and destructiveness.  In “The Destructors”, a world without love, morality, and compassion for others is one that eventually ends in mindless destruction as expressed in the demolition of a helpless old man’s home.  In “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, death, obsession, and insanity are the fruits of a godless worldview dependent upon luck and chance for happiness.

Paul’s childhood struggle is resolved in his death at the end of the story, while it seems that Trevor will eventually grow into a troubled, destructive young man.  For Greene, cruelty and destruction are dismissed in a din of cynical laughter in a world that is deaf to meaning and which finds expression in the cab driver’s reaction to the destruction of Old Misery’s house: “‘I’m sorry.  I can’t help it, Mr. Thomas.  There’s nothing personal, but you got to admit it’s funny’”.  If there is no meaning to be found, even in the cruelty of the world, then there is no point to struggle against it – all we can do is embrace it in all its destructiveness, as did Trevor, and laugh about it, as did the cabbie.

D.H. Lawrence presents a boy who is determined to resist and combat the cruel hand of fate, but whose efforts prove to be no less futile than Trevor’s.  Paul’s struggle is summed up by his uncle: “But, poor devil, poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.” In other words, Paul does not belong to a world that accepts fate and destruction, and Lawrence seems to imply by Paul’s death that the struggle is a hopeless one.

In these two short, but complex stories, D.H. Lawrence and Graham Greene develop protagonists and plots united by similar thematic elements.  Trevor and Paul are both children who face similar dilemmas as they try to function in a world without G-d and devoid of meaning.  The ideas of adult pressures and destruction are prominent in both stories as well.  However, the two authors resolve their respective dilemmas and conflicts very differently.

             Both D.H. Lawrence and Graham Greene have powerfully portrayed the futility of a world without G-d.  Where G-d and G-d’s love are lacking, destruction and the whimsical hand of fate rise to take their place.  And as Lawrence and Greene demonstrate in their stories, the final resolution of the struggle against G-d can never be anything but ultimate annihilation, hate, cruelty, and death.