(i need 100%) write me a analytic essay 1300 word on “Easter, 1916” Question:
How does the author’s use of “motley” conceptualize the lack of collectivity in the socioeconomic state of Ireland TO generate meaningful collective identity for the Irish after their “too long a sacrifice”?
The Easter 1916 NOTES:
The title when said “easter” tells me it’s the holiday of giving. The part that says 1916 tells us it’s not a normal easter; it’s the easter of 1916. Understand that part to understand the text
WB Yeats is irish and lives in Dublin Ireland in eighteenth century housing=poverty
The houses are gray because they have no electricity; they use candles for light
England was colonized by the roman empire, they killed everyone in ireland. Ireland has never gained independence until today; always has been colonized. England doesn’t want them to have total control. They take away their language. Sanskrit was the first indian dialect until colonized. Now it’s Hindi. When you’re using the colonizers form of language you follow its ideology. Losing language= loss of identity; the new language you learn is a new identity to you. When you don’t know or understand the language you’ll feel frustrated from confusion. You’ll feel lost because you don’t make sense to yourself.
Moves the space from the city to a farm in the third stanza. The tone changes as you read; its changing
First stanza is the early evening among gray the space is in Dublin. The uprising
Second stanza is the continuation of the night(dominant) and a bit of day. The space in the text is the suburbs. Harriers are what people in the luxury life to; when they want to hunt they secure a space on the outskirts of Ireland to shoot their choice of prey This stanza explains a little bit before 1916
Third stanza is the shadow of a cloud on the stream at its day time. There is no physical space. This stanza solidifies a space in your heart; nationalism. He’s creating a space in the hearts of the people that live in Ireland. This stanza is talking far from before 1916. Talking about the british colonizing 1000 yrs ago
Fourth stanza is the night again. This is talking about after 1916. What should we do? How do we understand the incident and make sense of it.
Counter and desk is an office job, low paid jobs.
Our weighend horse= a poet a mythology
A drunken vainglorious lout= upper class
Keeping a school means the man is a principle
them= workers/ people who survived; Dubliner’s, I=workers
Eruope is in control of technology, but England is controlling ireland’s electricity; its like north korea, limiting their knowledge
The vivid faces are a contradiction to the dark tone in the first stanza; problematize this. This means they are hopeful.
Ireland is left with no food because Europe made sure they had no sources for anything. They only had potatoes. This was during the 1850-1860’s. The people in them poem outlived the genocide. They’re hopeful because they lived through that.
He then speaks of how he passes with a nod. Nobody talks to anyone, they’re trying not to die. Go to work, go home. Everything is meaningless because there is no Irish language= no identity. Everyone has nameless faces, that’s the problem. No dignity.
mother= ireland
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
calling out the name of the child is creating identity by inspiring others. They’re envisioning Ireland to revive it. That is the space in the fourth stanza. The time in the text
Phoenix park is a place to decapitalize people and bury them, it’s a form of a masquerade from England.
The post office on the river in Dublin read about it. 1914-1918 the first world war happened. Easter 1916 happens right in the middle of the war. 1916 Easter was more important. The navy of England from being mobilized went down the river to kill anyone they could find.
After everyone is dead the british army captures people and decapitated people in phoenix park
The Irish people could not mourn over people. Funerals were not allowed.
This whole poem talks about history to understand 1916
Picture:
Mocking tale= everyone talks without thinking
gibe/ worse than mocking= intentionally mocks someone to hurt them. To make sense of themselves. They gain something from insulting a person. They gibe a person in front of someone else to gain approval from a person. Pleasing a companion comes from insulting someone that the person you are trying to gain approval from likes you
The speaker is the only one that thinks before doing. The speaker doesn’t approve the inhumane behavior
The result from thinking is “we are all wearing motley, all us irish men” the sentence “But lived where motley is worn”
Motley is gesture attire. They tell realities in life, they live in kings courts. A gesture makes the king aware of their mistakes or opinions. Gestures are the poorest of the poor. The gesture is a sign of poverty.
The king is a British king. The gestures are Irish men who serve the British king. The speaker notices this contradiction, a terrible beauty is born= the beauty is the awareness
Motley is colorful. Look at how the colors and attire change throughout the poem. What does the change mean?
The Second Stanza:
Polite meaningless words= ignorant good will
Nights are dominant in this
Shrill voice= high pitched, creates exhau\stion and frustration
On the day she doesn’t argue with the Irish because we are polite but are ignorant. In the night she argues with the british.
The woman turns into a banshee because of her shrill voice; death is coming and inevitable
The dream of Irish independence has not yet become reality because people talked of rebellion and politics, but before Easter 1916, they obediently conformed to England’s rule rather than actively pursuing change.
The imagery arguing “Until her voice grew shrill”(20) but maintaining a life of “ignorant good-will”(18) illustrates the deceptive nature of appearances.
Although these figures purposefully lobbied for Irish independence, their contributions had primarily consisted of lofty ideas and passionate discussions rather than thoughtful action.
They maintained the appearance of dedicated revolutionaries, but until “A terrible beauty is born”(40) they continue to merely appear to desire change rather than actively pursue change.
Harriers are a breed of dog originally bred to hunt resembling a foxhound: a runner on a cross country team
When young and beautiful she rode to harriers, why? She’s riding with the British because she can’t afford to do so, what makes her eligible? Her youth and beauty makes her desirable to go along. The British don’t listen to her because her opinions are relevant to them just appearances.
He states that she was sweeter before arguing for Irish independence. This is seen through the second instance of metonymy; a figure of speech where a concept is referred to by the name of something related to it, in which her “shrill” voice is compared to her femininity. She used to ride horses and hunt rabbits, but then she got involved via her husband in the Rising.
Wing’d horse= pegasus the mythical creature that’s half horse and half rooster; they’re normally white; used for great victories for freedom, power and all. For the heroes and the Gods
Wing’d horse= good poet
The line that says “so sensitive his nature seemed…” and so means he tried to write a poem for the Irish but failed.
Vainglorious lout= showing too much pride in your own achievements, he is a fool showing arrogance and conceit by attacking people. This is complimenting gibing, he serves the british now for something to gain. He is still a friend and part of the song because he is a part of the Irish unity. There would be no unity excluding him. “He has resigned his part in the casual comedy,” he has realized what he has been doing and stops. Why mock my people instead of supporting them.
Casual comedy= everyone wears a motley, everyone is a gesture.
So the husband and his friends were involved in the fight for independence; rebellions
focusing on their daily life, rather than their political involvement, he suggests the humanity of Ireland’s heroes and indicates that common citizens have the ability to effect a change in society if they rebel against obedient conformity and “ignorant good-will”
A terrible beauty is born which means Ireland progresses down a path of independence, hardship, responsibility.
In the third stanza the rebels have hardened their hearts against the English, and have focused on “one purpose”—armed rebellion.
The hearts of these rebels are compared to a stone that “troubles” a stream of history. Not only are the hearts representative of the entire person, but they are also referred to as stones. They are immovable, dedicated to one purpose. It is at this point that the speaker changes his tone towards the rebels. They are garnering respect they didn’t have before; the Irish will no longer allow the British to govern their way of life.
In order to emphasize the unchanging nature of the rebels, the speaker goes through a variety of images. He speaks on the rating briefs and the tumbling clouds. These are things that do change. They contrast the rebels’ hearts.
The use of “stone” in lines 43 and 56 is symbolic to the poem. A stone represents an inanimate object that stays the same. To go along with the theme of change, the speaker includes the idea that clouds change minute by minute.
The state of constancy is the important aspect of this word. Everything that has happened previously in the poem cannot be changed. The stone will forever be a stone, as will the deaths of those mentioned earlier. The stone, whose purpose is “to trouble the living stream,” hinders the flowing of the water.
The entire stanza has the motif of nature. None of the previous stanzas mention nature. Instead, the speaker discussed people and their actions. He shifts the focus from the individual to nature. Nature proves to be important because the constant motion of the stream and the clouds symbolizes that change is inevitable.
Class this is before everything started. The rider that comes from the road
Why did we fall into the hands of the British in the first place?
Enchanted to a stone= they have cursed our hearts and turned them into stones. They interrupt the Irish lifes by throwing the stones in the water.
They don’t know how to understand the change; is the rider good news or bad news?
Sliding of the brim= is an action; a bad sign
plashes= agitated; a bad sign
The irish don’t know how to react
Minute by minute they change, minute by minute they live means every minute they change; we are blindsided then our natural reaction is to live by it
That is how they react and why they haven’t beaten the british
“The stones in the midst of it all” after the stream was disrupted, we can’t keep on living
animals= ignorant good will
Fourth stanza = 1916
This is where identity is realized, she screams out her child’s name. People realize people’s identity and that gives “us” identity. Irish gain identity by the death of those loved ones.
Was it needless death after all? The death that happened helped us realize identity so yes
Unified identity
“And now in time to be”- future, green is worn
The song starts when he writes out
Terrible beauty= identity
the heart in a transformation, becoming consistent like the stone. “Too long a sacrifice”(57) in regards to war, has caused the heart to become a stone, bringing detrimental effects upon the hearts of all men.
When this occurs, the responsibility the world must take is to love each corrupted soul, calling each by name “as a mother names her child when sleep has come”(63). However, sleep is a metaphor for death and these men die in result of their inability to change among the changing events around them
The rebels who are all united by their dedication to the heroic dream, giving Ireland everything they could. The speaker continues to say that wherever the spirit of Ireland lies, represented by people wearing the color “green,” those people will be forever changed. The terrible beauty, dying for this heroic dream, has been born.
green= Growth, fertility, health, and generosity, luck, money
An Encounter (fiction)
Time and space and voice is doubled in this type of short story
The voice’s are the narrator and there’s a nameless narrator who is a kid with no parents.
This short story has the space Dublin 1904 10 yrs before eastern rising
James Joyce is Irish, make the connections, we know the backgrounds
What does it mean to be a child at that time?
First paragraph
“An Encounter,” identify those encounters and annotate find that ONE encounter; which one matters
Joe Dillon is older than these kids and is introducing them to this scenery.
Wild West is indigenous north america; the term is from Europe of the west colonizing north america. The name came to be because of the indigenous being wild and crazy from not knowing how to deal with what’s happening. To retaliate savagery they become savages too and are more scary. The colonizers gave that name because they needed to be tamed
There is a correlation in colonizing. British colonized the Irish and Europe colonized North America
If using the word “indian”- put it in quotations
Dillion talks about a little library which means he lacks access/knowledge. The colonizer decides what they can read, that is why. Limited knowledge.
Halfpenny marvel = cheap stories of fantasies
He sells cheap stuff to control their knowledge. The premise is that they are calculating the colonial mindset in the kids
This shows a lack of empathy. Joe Dillon has no idea that these fantasies are real incidents. These stories are unreal to them
They read these worthless stories from the colonizers and reenact them “arranged indian battles.’ he recreates these battles as a game
These kids are irish and they don’t read the books they just play the game
The irony is the indigenous people winning because they never win. This war dance of victory from Dillon is mocking all the defeats that they’ve encountered.
Dillon is a bully, so we wonder what his parents look like
His parents are strictly religious, they go to mass every morning. His mom has a peaceful odor in the house. There’s a contradiction here. This means they are a redundant family, pretentious. It’s an act.
An old cozy is a teapot that is meant to represent a hat that the first nations wear in their pow wows
Dillon is mocking by yelling “Ya, yak yak yaka” but because powwows a strong meaningful celebration to honor their ancestors Dillon doesn’t comprehend the actual meaning. Its like canadians mocking the Chinese by saying ching-chong.
The mocking means they don’t know the language and they don’t want to know the language.
The colonizer thinks of the indigenous battles as halfpenny marvels.
The mocking is towards identity. It’s like the song in Easter 1916.
yak a yaka yaka is an encounter
An encounter is a face to face meeting between adversaries or opposing forces (enemies) and thus a meeting “in conflict; hence a battle, skirmish or duel.”
There is always a border between enemies, in an encounter it’s about one of their spaces in conflict
Encounters: the cat, the pigeon, the butler, in the ferryboat between the jew and the laborers,
The jew has a bag and that bag is home.
The lane represents a boarder structure of urban areas; human geography
Animal geography; the cat runs into an open field, borderless
A boy (mahoney) encounters the cat, remembering the weak always runs away. There are two scenarios in an encounter you either fight or the weaker one runs
The boy and the narrator then go and lay in the field after, taking over animal geography so they already have the mentality of colonizing
THE encounter with the old man: the narrator pretends to know about a book the old man has read so that makes the old man think he is vulnerable, easy to manipulate.
The boy wants to feel belonged, that’s why he pretends to know something. He wants to fit in because this boy doesn’t have parents. This goes back to the quotes with the indians “I was the one”. This boy was always pretending, he doesn’t have a sense of identity.
A bookworm reads as a form of escape from reality. The old man is saying he was just like the kid. He says I reflect on your future.
Mahoney is stupid and falls for the old man’s words. Agitated and pained me means that the narrator knows the old man is playing with him. The narrator has a feminine nature.
When he talks about boys and sweethearts, the old man starts to have physical changes; he chills. The old man has had education in pornography. The narrator goes to a private catholic school because of a sponsorship from the church
Old man is shabby dressed so he classifies as having a not so good life
The nature of society says that boys should have sweethearts. This is about a conservative ideology. Imposing things but it’s not reasonable.
The narrator disliked how the old man presented “sweethearts” nature vs social construct
The old man redirects the conversation where he talks about girls but he’s actually talking about the boys, he wants a homo society because “girls are bad.”
In a conservative catholic society the old man has to keep redirecting because “homo” isn’t part of the social constructs. He fears people will hear. He’s a drunk shabby dresser so he is already in trouble
The narrator gazing at the slope is him reflecting the mystery he has. He reflects off the man’s words. The old man walked away but the narrator did not change the direction of his gaze. That’s mental awareness
Mahoney yells “he’s a queer old josser” the narrator does not see the problem, he’s not shocked.
Mahoney has normalized the old man’s actions because he has no trauma, the narrator is traumatized because he comes from trauma
The narrator is consciously deconstructing their identities to fit within society. The narrator is reluctant. He wants to be accepted
The narrator and the old man are both gazing at each other
How my heart beat as he came running across the field to me! The narrator is romanticizing Mahoney in this. He despises him a little because of unrequited love. Mahoney doesn’t see him, they’re from different norms in society. The narrator will be done and excluded if he expresses his emotions
