Last Thursday we concluded class with a discussion on the importance of the word “rage” in the final stanza of “The Idea of Order at Key West.” Brianna made a great point that Wallace Stevens could very well have employed the term to caution readers that humans’ obsessive search for order can have detrimental effects on that which we are trying to make orderly. For example, our society’s fixation on constructing perfectly laid out subdivisions for families to raise their children has come at the cost of destroying valuable wildlife habitat and important ecosystems, especially here in the western United States. This connects with the idea that to control and to make order out of something wild is to kill it, as our pursuit to develop the land has ultimately led to its destruction. So perhaps Wallace Stevens desired to warn the audience that while humans will always be comforted by finding a sense of higher order, creating order out of our surroundings inevitably leads to the ruin of the fundamental structure of these surroundings.
Such an interpretation of Stevens’ message resides in the reader’s concentration on the negative aspects of the word “rage.” Rage is a potent emotion that can lend itself to senseless destruction. Literature often portrays characters who are blinded by rage and who thus commit offenses that they normally would not, such as Othello’s murder of Desdemona when he becomes inconsolably troubled at allegations that his wife has been unfaithful. With an effect similar to that of a blind rage, the singular quest for order may leave humans ignorant of the havoc that such a narrow-minded pursuit brings.
I, however, had a different interpretation of the term “rage” the first few times that I read Stevens’ poem. I continue to stand by the argument I made in class that deep within the confines of rage there exists a positive quality to take away from an otherwise destructive emotion. There are few human emotions, with the exception of love, that contain the sheer power and intensity that rage possesses. Although in a strict sense this great strength is put to detrimental use when someone is in a rage, it might be possible to channel the force and empowerment of rage into superior objectives. For example, in my career as a competitive runner in high school, I would often draw from the concept of rage to make myself put as much energy and effort as possible into a race. It helped to visualize myself “raging” with my arms and legs pumping wildly during, say, the last lap of a 3200 meter race. I don't think that I would have been able to go as hard in those races if I had focused on euphoria, bewilderment, or any number of other emotions. Another case of rage being portrayed in a positive light comes from Dylan Thomas' poem "Do not go gentle into that good night." The speaker of this poem attempts to convince his dying father to not give into the ease of death and to instead fight to keep living with the refrain "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." In this sense, rage is seen as a quality of the living and as a powerful feeling that can be harnessed to overcome adverse circumstances. With the famous refrain, Thomas asserts that rage is associated with life and is thus a higher emotion than indifference, which will forever be connected with death. Finally, Wallace Stevens' use of the word "blessed" in the first line of the final stanza in"The Idea of Order at Key West" may suggest that he wished to characterize our desperate search for order as not necessarily destructive, but as genuinely human and as sustained by the "maker." Perhaps Stevens was hinting that we are all destined to passionately seek order and that this pursuit is fundamentally connected to our vitality. In summation, I contend that the more positive aspects of rage not be overlooked when interpretting the last stanza of "The Idea of Order at Key West."
No comments:
Post a Comment