Gun 1205

Essay

Through its transition of setting, “Complaint” parallels the change of society in William’s time,

In the poem, the doctor was called to the woman’s house in a snowy midnight. When he arrived,

he saw the woman on the bed having several conditions of sickness. She was giving birth to her

tenth child. Then the small and sharp beam of light passed through the dark room. At the night,

she was in pain giving birth and being sick as a result of pregnancy. The evidence is obviously

mentioned in the poem, “…to give birth to a tenth child”(line#14-15) and “She is sick”(line#11).

The poem then transits to the time when sunlight got to the room as it reads “Night is a room

darkened for lovers, through the jalousies the sun has sent one golden needle!” This is

representing her relief after a long-suffering. Night and snow set the emotion of sadness on the

existing issues, or referred to as pregnancy, while sunlight set the emotion of happiness and relief

after a crucial situation. The night is a sign of the lack of knowledge and understanding of the

world since it is dark and reality is hidden in the darkness. Light is, in contrast, a sign of fulfilled

knowledge and educated knowledge. This is reflecting that modernism provides people with a

more realistic perspective of viewing the world. It is an era of changes from believing in god and

unproven believes in provable knowledge. People also are frightened and fear of the increase in

both the quality of weapons and quantity of wars. Williams has a sympathy for the suffering

women as it is stated in the poem “I pick the hair from her eyes/and watch her misery/with

compassion.”(line#20-22) which means that he knows that the upcoming period is not what

others expect and he is sorry for that.

Through its depiction of comparing actions of humanities to goats, “The desolate Field” parallels

the change of society in William’s time. The poem begins by writing “Vast and gray” (line#1) to
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set the place to be dark and hopeless before writing the same phrase again in line 4 and 12. He

then mentions that the sky is a simulacrum to everyone else but him. This is showing that he

views the world differently from others. In other words, he is seeing a real world which others

cannot see. Later on the poem mentions about a goat who is trying to find food on the desolate

field, but instead, the poet is looking above to the air. The evidence to this is written “In the tall,

dried grasses/a goat stirs/with nozzle searching the ground./-my the head is in the air”(line#5-8).

This is reflecting the aforementioned ideology by comparing the action of goat trying to find

foods in a dry grassland to the idea that other people, but him, are believing. In addition, the

action of him having his head in the air reflects that he is now free from the loop and stop

believing in the non-existing faith and unproven theorem. The poem is saying about the

confusion and loss that people at that time have on the reality which is not in the period of

imagination anymore.

Through its depiction of actions that leaves do to stick on the tree, “Willow Poem” parallels the

disruption of society in William’s time. The poem begins by setting the time to be when the

summer is over and mentions that there is a willow nearby the river. The leaves are not yet fallen

or bitten by the sun. The evidence to this is “from which no leaf has fallen nor/bitten by the

sun/turned orange or crimson”(line#3-5). They cling and stick to the tree and willing to be the

last leave who falls as it reads “the last to let go and fall/into the water and on the

ground”(line#13-14). Leaves stick on the old same branch of the same tree as they grow. The

tree is there nearby the river and not moving. Even if the leaves have no ideas where the wind in

the air or the current of the water will bring them to, they are afraid and they are frightened of

leaving the tree. They have no idea what will happen to them change. This reflects human
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behavior when they are facing a big change, they feel uncomfortable and lonely as they have

nothing to rely on. The action of leaves clinging is paralleling human trying to stick on what they

are safe to be with. In this case, modernism educates people that time to meet science and truth.

Believes about the god who is thought to be the creator and the protector of humankind is refuted

and replaced by scientific explanation instead. As a result, believers cannot continue walking

their way without having god backing them. As a comparison to the poem, the time is set to be

when the summer is over because summer is the time when people have faith in God, but then it

transmits to the time when there is no summer anymore, or no faith in God anymore. In addition,

branches of the tree represent god which leaves, representing human, rely on and stick to them

regardless of how the surroundings are.

Poem

We are living in a civilized world

We are living in a civilized world-

we are told
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we wear a proper uniform-

they give us

we study the same thing-

they provide us

we cannot argue-
they are older

we have to be soldiers-
they force us

we work hard everyday-

they tax us

but we are living in a civilized world-

they tell us

Refection

The poem is about the problems we have right now that we can see if we are not biased. The

world, right now, is not civilized as we claim because we have to have a freedom to choose what

to wear, choices to study what we want to study. We have to be free to comment and have a clear
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position that we think is the best from our viewpoints. Also, adults and children have to be equal

in giving opinions. One of the most annoying legal obligation we are facing is that reserved

officers for military still exist in a world that is claimed to be civilized. Shouldn’t we have a right

to choose which career we want to be? A soldier is an ideal career for some people, but not for

everyone. Some people are willing to learn academic and work as specialists for each different

fields which are not the soldier. People all around the world are working hard, but have to pay

for taxes that they wouldn’t use. For example, people with higher income pay for taxes and don’t

go to hospitals or schools that are provided by the government ever in their lives, so I can notice

the inequality here. All of these are parts of the problem we are having right now. The purpose of

my poem is to acknowledge the citizens in the globe to be aware and reconsider whether we

should manifesto or revolt or not. In addition, the matters I mentioned are caused by tradition and

legal obligation. It is never easy to convey everyone to agree with these ideas, so I want to spread

my ideas to those reading my poem.

This poem is similar to Williams’ poems because we both use what we see in real life and

surroundings to write the poem. In Williams’ poems, he focused on Modernism and Imagism

which are the existed issues at his time while my poem focuses on the existing problem about the

wrong claim that we are living in a civilized word which is not true according to examples in

each stanza. Both Williams and I write about the concrete ideas, not abstract ideas. The evidence

to this is I am one of those who sees what I write in the poem and it is happening during my

time, as same as Williams when he looked on things around him at his time and wrote the poems

based on those observations. For my poem, uniform exists, school exists, elder people exist.
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Being forced to be soldiers and taxation might not be true in every country, but they are true in

my country and they exist.

The literary device being used here is repetition or repeating the same phrase. My poem reads

“We are living in a civilized world” twice. This is the same as Williams’ technique when he

repeated the same phrases in his poems. For example, in “The Desolate Field”, he repeated “vast

and gray”. The reason behind my repetition is to focus on the meaning of the phrase. I want to

spotlight this phrase at the very first and very last line because I want to make a point that “Are

we really living in a civilized world as we are told?” Another technique that I use is line-breaks.

This technique is used in every single stanza to highlight the subject to be “they” which represent

laws and traditions. The last technique I used is the lack of punctuation. Without punctuation,

full stops, the ideas in the poem are more connected. It is also an example of breaking the rule,

grammar rule in this case, as Williams did in many of his poems.