Post your homework here as a comment. Please also bring a paper copy of your writing to class next Wednesday.
NOTE: It is acceptable to respond to the poem with feelings rather than meanings if you wish. By that I mean respond to something specific Szymborska suggests with your emotional response, for example.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
The paradox of our life
“And what can you say about one day of life
A minute, a second
Darkness, a light bulb’s flash, then dark again?”
The poem “Return Baggage” by Wislawa Szymborska, describes the feeling of an old woman when she passed by the grave of young children. They are supposed to live in this world as long as ordinary people. What makes their life so short? Who snuff out the candle of life so cruelly? The above excerpt, urges me thinking about the paradox of our life. We, human being, have created technologies, civilizations, but we also have created warfare, world hunger, and disease. Those children are the victims of human tragedy. Their short life is like a flash in the darkness, will it wake up our apathetic consciousness? Hopefully !
--129 words, first draft by Linda.
Szymborska’s use of children’s names makes her poem, “Return Baggage,” more powerful and effective. In a poem of 178 words, six words are the given first names of children. Knowing her poetry, I imagine Szymborska strolling through a graveyard in Poland and taking note of real names. By naming the children, she makes the loss of innocent life seem even more pitiful. In her second stanza, she names three, using a list form preceded by “little.” These children represent all who die young, but are not given a specific kind of death. The other three--“Malgorzata,” “Rafalek” and “Zuzia”—are given a specific fate. For Malgorzata, a prolonged death implied by two years “staring at the ceiling”; for Rafalek, missing “his first birthday”; for Zuzia a “missed Christmas.” The power of using real names makes Szymborska’s poem one her best.
“And what you can say about one day of life,
And minute, a second:
darkness, alight bulb’s flash, then dark again?”
“Return Baggage”, by Wislawa Szymborska, describes the narrator’s heart-struck and conscience-stricken feelings when she passes a children’s cemetery. In this poem, Szymborska tells about specifically some children’s death and implies they are too young. Although everyone’s life is short compared to the universe, ‘The time is paradox,” we should take a moment to look after children whose lives have passed so sadly- victims of accidents, of poverties, and of illnesses. So, Szymborska uses the image of the wealthy people passing slums to describe the guilt. Of course, we understand that the guilt emerges because some people enjoy the long-lives but others suffer the death’s sadness.
“The cemetery plot for tiny graves
We the long-lived, pass by furtively,
Like wealthy people passing slums.”
From the beginning, the poem shows a strong grief of atmosphere. Then, following the sentences of the poem, it seems that Szymborska leads the readers slowly go through the tiny graves, slightly read out the children’s name and the cause of their death, one by one. She shows a great regret about the dead children. Children are the future of world. Those dead children cannot be bring back to life, but they can arouse people cherish life, especially cherish children’s life, who are too young to protect themselves from any harm. At the end, Szymborska mentions that the universe and all of the things on the world have lifespan, and she hints that people need to cherish them, and protect them not to die too young, like those poor dead children.
The poem "Return Baggage" by Szymborska, has many description of how the children are displayed. "This one here, that one there, those on the end" makes us understand the feeling that she is consigning and cannot stop looking to see how death takes lives away. "Before they grew to reach a door knob" is referring to how the children did not live enough to experience life and therefore illustrates their immaturity. In stanza six, Szymborska gave the ages of the children: "malgovzata, four years old" which makes it even more pitiful. The use of real names in Szymborska’s poem makes it more unique.
Wislawa Szymborska’s poem is a strong poem about dead young lives. She refers to dead children by their names like, “Zuzia” or “Malgorzata” because she wants to give them personality and make readers to see that they are humans with a very short life. She shows that they are too young to experience death. For example, “Rafalek, missed his first birthday by a month,” or in other lines she refers to even shorter lives, “a minute, a second:” which is really sad. It also makes people think of graves as people not as a part of the land.
98 words
“Darkness, a light bulb’s, then dark again?”
Szymborska depicts the lives of children who died young as a light bulb’s flash. How eloquently she put it in words- the short span of life in the light of eternity. Every death has the causes, unfinished stories, and sorrows, but nonetheless, each grave has remained wordlessly in a cemetery. Many things are common to both, the long lived and the short lived, especially the way they return to “dark again”, death. For the first few readings, my eyes were fixed on children who died young, however, as I ponder on the poem for a ling time, “death of mankind” came up to my mind rather than young children’s – no one stash much in his return baggage. From this poem, I see the futility of mankind.
"Small-scale naughtiness,
granted, some of it fatal.
Gaily chasing the ball across the road.
The happiness of skating on the thin ice."
In this poem"Return Baggage", Poet Szymborska illustrates her ponderation of life when walking by the graves of young children. Reading this poem and thinking of those tiny innocent souls bring me a deeply heart-broken pain and an extremely helpless feeling. These lovely little lives were ended so early that it seems unreasonable; they should be happy everyday under the sunshine without any suffer. But, as poet mentions, fate is unfair, and fatal factors are staying behind even in some gaily moments.That is human being's life, or fate. We can't say or do anything to make changes, we have to accept it. However, a person's life, no matter how long or how short, is just a t iny flash among the enormous endless universal precedure.
This is a really sad poem. I could imagine that the old woman wander through the graveyard and read the words on the gravestones one by one. She lamented that life is unfair for these children. Comparing with most of the people, these children quickly passed by, and couldn’t see this world like us. If you think it in the sad way, there are no answers and relief. I’d rather think that they went somewhere better than live on the earth, like heaven; not like Szymborska said went to the “darkness”, or in the “dark again. After read this poem, I feel that every minute and every single day are precious. Life is short for all of us, and seems like a “flash”.
-123 words-
After I read the poem “Return Baggage”, I am obtained the strong impression that is the human life is so fragility, and people commonly are afraid of death. In the poem, he wrote “We, the long-lived, pass by furtively”. It shows how scared when people pass by that area. In the whole poem, the poet listed lots of children's name who died earlier. The poet want to tell the reader that the life is short, and it could be second like “a light bulb’s flash”, so we long-lived should kindly deal with every day. After I read this poem, I feel little bit sad, but it remind me that I must hurry up to do something as so as possible, and don’t be late because the life is short even if I could live over one hundred year.
This one here, that one down there, those on the end:
before they grew to reach a doorknob,
break a watch,
smash their first windowpane.
This tragic poem, “Return Baggage,” reminded me how life can be so short and tough. In her entire poem, “Return Baggage,” Szymborska expresses her feelings by an aged lady who walks through the cemetery of young children: considering their unfortunate fate. In her poem, Szymborska talks about all innocent children loss forever. In her fifth stanza, she feels sad for those children who passed away so young before they try life’s taste and grow up to face either happiness or unhappiness in the world. Some of them didn’t even reach a doorknob or break something. She is trying to tell us that our existence is not guaranteed for exact period of time, so it can end in a year, a month, a day, an hour, or a second.
128 words: by Zarmina
“ And what can you say about one day of life.
a minute, a second:
darkness, a light bulb’s flash, then dark again?”
The poem “Return Baggage” by Wislawa Szymborska describes the feeling when the author passed the graves of children. She thought about the life, the death and the fate. Everyone has different life, like the light bulb’s flash, some are colorful, some are rugged and some are short-lived (like the children in the poem). But the beginning and the end are some, they are birth and death. This is the fate for every human being and for every creature. It is cruel and unchangeable. So, what is the meaning of the life between the two darkness? In my opinion, it is to cherish the life and enjoy it no matter what difficult you meet and how long it is, because it is just a flash.
The poet writes about a woman walking past the cemetery .where are the graves of some children. She thought about their early departure of life and the missing of the pleasure of their childhood.Malgorzata four years old, Rafalek 11month and Zuzia and lots more children who are deprived of the happiness of the life. The poet writes about the lives duration of the human being and the whole universe. Also, she comment that human beings hasn`t any effect on the duration of their age. When death comes they must surround to their destiny.
Return Baggage the poem by “Wislawa Szymborska is a very sad and heart tacking poem that really made you cry.
I thing the narrators heart broke when he passed the cemetery in this poem. The narrator specifically told about the children’s death and the incidence that toke place .He even mentioned the names of the children’s that we affected with the incidence .I think that,” whatever is created in this world will be distorted” .In that case to bring happiness in the children’s life how has experienced the tragic illness, and accidence the poet uses word such as: wealth y person, and they are flying butterflies to make the children feel better. However, we now that life has to go on, no matter what happen.
Post a Comment