The first tone poem I chose was "Woodchucks" by Maxine Kumin. It can be found on pg. 843 of the Norton.
When I read this poem through the first time it didn't quite catch my attention until the very last sentence: "If only they'd all consented to die unseen/ gassed underground the quiet Nazi way." Reading this line snapped my attention to the page and I had to go back and re-read the poem. When I did, I discovered how greatly tone impacts the overall meaning of the poem. Kumin is commenting on the humanistic views on violence. In comparing the killing of woodchucks with the killing of Jews in Nazi Germany, the poem is put into perspective.
The tone changes throughout the poem. In the beginning, it has more of an aggravated tone. The speaker does not have much of a connection to the killing of the woodchucks other than the fact that they are ruining his/her yard. However, as the gardener begins to kill the woodchucks one by one, a more excited tone arises. I use the word excited in a negative manner. The speaker becomes enthralled with killing each of these woodchucks until every last one of them is dead. He/She pays attention to how the mother "flipflopped in the air and fell" instead of feeling remorse for how they died, as he/she did in the beginning of the poem. The final line is almost back to an annoyed tone, but in a very different manner. The speaker seems to wish the woodchucks had not put up a fight at all; that if they should have died silently as the Jews did in Germany.
The tone of this poem definitely changes throughout. The shifts in change parallel with the speaker's emotions, actually creating the strong emotion we feel from the reader. Without such a strong feeling of annoyance and excitement through the poem, it would lose much of its meaning by the end.
Shape--> "My Body"
15 years ago
9 comments:
Good choice...I saw Kumin receive an honorary degree at my sister's graduation; she was wonderfully eloquent. This poem has been criticized for not "going anywhere." What do the rest of you think? I particulary find the line “puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing” a disturbing shift in our speaker, once a "pacifist." Is there commentary here on human nature? Do we get caught up in the killing? Do we join in the thrill of it as it's described or do we find it disturbing/repulsive? What does it reveal about the reader? Thoughts...
I think the author infers that there's a killer within all of us. Even though the narrator was a pacifist, the "hawkeye killer came on stage." His murderous instincts came out.
The story also evolves from a general hatred to a personal tale of revenge. Once the woodchucks invaded the narrator's garden, his tone changes from annoyance to hatred and anger.
Kasey, I agree completely with how you said the tone went back to aggravation and annoyance in the end. I also noticed that he seemed proud and happy towards the end which really confused me.
Also, to answer Ms. Giggie, I think people say this poem doesn't go anywhere because they do not see the deeper meaning of the poem. People who criticize Kumin are ignorant to the fact that she is parallizing this poem about woodchucks to the victims of the holocaust.
I was appalled by this poem. It disgusted my insides, but after rereading it, I understood the poem in a deeper way. Kumin is almost revealing the pride of the victims of the holocause who put up a fight against the nazis, and the courage they had. It is as if this poem is a commemoration of those who lost their lives and the way they wouldn't "die unseen".
I agree with Charlie's comment about "the killer within all of us" because Kumin portrays the negativity of human nature. It merely takes a small catalyst, "gassing the woodchucks didn't turn out right", to bring out the darker side within people where morality is nonexistent. Kumin describes in very explicit detail her transition using words phrases such as "fallen from grace" to describe the downward path she follows.
The reader can almost picture her annoyance and imagine "beheading the carrots" and the woodchuck "died down in the everbeating roses". Yet these descriptions, as Chris mentioned, "disgusted my insides", but maybe not to that intensity.
I feel like the tone begins as sort of removed, and emotionless but towards the middle shifts into joy during the killings. To be honest it's kind of scary. I feel that this is a commentary on just how brainwashed many of these nazis were. They were so convinced that killing jews was their duty that they became almost machines. There was no emotion, and if there was it was joy to be killing. I think that Kumin is commenting on the utter domination of the Nazi regime on the people's minds.
I'm also not sure why my name is no longer matt...
I think what Charlie said about there being "a killer in all of us" is interesting because I felt that the second stanza almost drew a parallel between the people and the woodchucks. The speaker says that the woodchucks are "no worse/for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes/and state-store Scotch," thus drawing an initital comparison between the two. The speaker goes on to describe the woodchucks eating the vegetables in the garden in a violent way. The woodchucks, "nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots," seem to be killing, even executing the vegetables, showing that even they have a killing instinct. Overall, I felt this poem was almost scary in the ease with which the speaker kills the woodchucks, which is of course a commentary on the Nazis.
The tone of an almost relaxed killer disturbs me, "There's one chuck left. Old wily fellow, he keeps me cocked and ready day after day." The narrator is enjoying his/herself in a sick way, he/she sees it as a game.
To respond to Ms. Giggie, even though the killing in this poem repulses me, I think that the narrator here gets caught up in the killing which relates to what Charlie said about the killer in all of us. Whether we can resist this or not is the issue that Kumin creates while we read this. Would we go with the flow? I believe that she wants the reader to think about that because of the fact that she presents such a conformist here in her poem.
After reading this poem through a couple times I found it extremely disturbing. I absolutely agree with Kasey's analysis of the tone. The tone starts off more logical, the speaker tells himself essentially that he has no choice but to kill the woodchucks. But slowly a more primal tone manifests itself in the speakers tone, until it overwhelms and overtakes him. The speaker sounds out of control and unable to stop himself, perhaps because of his rationalization combined with his inner "id" desire to kill. The speakers tone shows delight in killing these woodchucks, dominating them completely as he does. Most importantly though, I find that the scariest part of this poem is how human the speaker sounds at first. His tone doesn't lose it's humanity until He becomes enthralled. I find this part the most disturbing as it makes the turn seems so easy and so unforeseeable, which is truly frightening.
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