From the Journal of a Disappointed Man Flashcards
Overall
Quatrains
-> Monotony of work
-> Sturdiness and strength
-> Lack of creativity / rigid structure
Poet is dependent on the men to write the poem
I discovered these men driving a new pile into the pier.
There was all the paraphernalia
of chains, pulleys, cranes, ropes and, as I said,
a wooden pile, a massive affair, swinging
Alliteration /p/ -> importance on words
Pier - Extended out into the ocean going nowhere / Men with their stubborn nature is going nowhere as well
Paraphernalia – Scholar / Intellectual / Academic nature of persona
List -> connotations or industrial imagery / Violence and power
Massive -> physical contrast of the men and implies the smaller frame of persona
Enjambement -> violent movement
over the water on a long wire hawser.
Everything else was in the massive style
as well, even the men; very powerful men;
very ruminative and silent men ignoring me.
Semicolon -> emphasis on the power
Ruminative and silent -> stoic like the monosyllables / contrasts the long descriptive sentences / admirable but also what makes the persona left out
Ignoring -> separation between persona and men
Repetition of “men” -> referring to the title / disappointed in the manhood of the persona is one possibility
Speech was not something to interest them,
and if they talked at all it was like this –
“Let go”, or “Hold tight”: all monosyllables.
Nevertheless, by paying close attention
Monosyllable -> contrast of intellectual masculinity
Metaphorical resonance to later in the play where they let go of the task leading to the disappointment / holding tight to an action that leads to inevitable disappointment
Whilst it seems to differ between the persona and the men there is a similarity / the persona is not speaking but simply writing just as then men do not speak either
to the obscure movements of one working
on a ladder by the water’s edge, I could tell
that for all their strength and experience
these men were up against a great difficulty.
Strength -> Great difficulty / suggests strength is not enough
Ladder -> symbolic quality/ladders can be wobbly and hazardous / in water is even more dangerous
The uncertainty of completing the task mirrors the persona’s uncertainty of the problem
There appears to be a deeper issues that “strength and experience” can not solve
I cannot say what. Every one of the monsters
was silent on the subject – baffled I thought
at first, but then I realised indifferent
and tired of the whole business.
Monsters -> Strength/sense of judgment/lack of intellectuality but rather barbarity/sense of separation / it is their strength that unsettles and alienates him
The man nearest to me, still saying nothing
but crossing his strong arms over his chest,
showed me that for all he cared the pile
could go on swinging until the crack of Doom.
Lack of care
“still” no communication -> persona is reliant on body language to understand what is going on / desire for acknowledgment? / trying to believe that body language is the communication / putting on a show rather than showing frustration
I should say I watched them at least an hour
and, to do the men justice, their slow efforts
to overcome the secret problem did continue –
then gradually slackened and finally ceased.
At least an hour -> lots of time on his hands/lack of occupation and purpose which could be a cause of disappointment
Do the men justice -> wants to describe the men accurately
Secret problem -> intriguing way to describe the practical difficulty of construction -> it seems like the speaker has no idea but also hints that there is a deeper problem that skill and strength can not overcome / never reveal what the secret problem is so it can be practical or psychological and the narrative raises these possibilities / either this can be due to lack of communication/performative male stoicism/proudness of refusal t ask for help/exhaustion from unrewarding job / or all the above
One massive man after another abandoned
his position and leaned on the iron rail
to gaze down like a mystic into the water.
No one spoke; no one said what they saw;
No one spoke – Anaphora / emphasizes the silence but also the possible lack of collaboration to solve problems
Smilie -> mystical crisis
Massive physicality -> irony to being defeated by a secret problem
Rather than declaring they have lost they simply move away from the “iron rail”
Iron rail -> symbolizes the hard limits they have gone against
Mystics -> Meditate in silence
The alliteration of /s/ evokes the hush that has fallen / collective embarrassment
Even monosyllabic lines are gone
though one fellow did spit, and with round eyes
followed the trajectory of his brown bolus
(he had been chewing tobacco)
on its slow descent into the same depths.
Brown bolus – Alliterative plosive -> spit (uncultured) / bolus emphasis on education
Trajectory -> going down into the water/alliteration in depths and dissapointment -> captures the atmosphere of defeat
The foreman, and the most original thinker,
smoked a cigarette to relieve the tension.
Afterwards, and with a heavy kind of majesty,
he turned on his heels and walked away.
Majesty -> Respect and disrespect go both ways
Thinker -> has gained the best position because he is a thinker/problem solver with original thought
With this eclipse of interest, the incident
was suddenly closed. First in ones and twos,
then altogether, the men followed. That left
the pile still in mid-air, and me of course.
Eclipse -> connotations of a fleeting moment coming to an end / dull minded men who rely on their desire / highlights a sense of barbarity
Final separation / the workers leave but the speaker stays / foreman has the respect to leave and accept defeat / for the speaker there is no dignity
Mid-air -> Lack of completion and suspension
Me -> Persona himself is left midair / the poem is left midair as well despite the differences the poet relies on the men / Possibly highlighting how the two types of masculinities are dependent on one another
Mid-air -> he saw the men solving a problem and was unable to help and they all ignored him/he feels dissatisfied and useless like the pile itself / lost and lonely and detached / inability to accept defeat but the reader must accept it
