English Advanced: Texts and Human Experiences

[Einstein_Reborn_97]

Question:
“Human experiences are varied and differ for each individual”.
Evaluate the ways that texts represent their human experiences referring Slessor poems set for study.

The essence of meaning behind human existence, or the lack thereof, lies in the nature of the experiences that an individual is subject to and is thus often unique to every individual. The human condition is multifaceted and the elucidation of its multitudinous variations provides an extensive source of ingenuity for capable composers to craft literary narratives that adequately represent distinct human experiences. Kenneth Slessor, a quintessential modernist poet of such ability, demonstrates the masterful manner in which texts can represent the ingrained human experiences through his acclaimed poems, “Wild Grapes” (1932), “Out of Time” (1939) and “Gulliver” (1939). Within each poetic piece is an insightful delineation of human nature and the varying manifestations of several human experiences that indubitably exist in the lives of individuals. Slessor’s intricate exploration of the nature of human experiences conveys his postulation of the diversity within the human experience, illuminating the paradoxes and inconsistencies in human behaviour that contribute to the aforementioned dissimilitude.

Human beings are intrinsically predisposed to experiencing a spectrum of complex human emotions, albeit in dissimilar circumstances, that influence an individual’s comprehension of what it means to be human. In order to fathom the complexity of the human condition, an assimilation of the emotions that permeate the human experience is imperative. Throughout Slessor’s anthology, he vividly expounds an array of emotions. For instance, in the first stanza of his dramatic dialogue “Wild Grapes”, he utilises sensory imagery in the phrase, “full of smoking air,” to create a visceral taste of bitterness and develop an ominous tone that is symbolic of the inherent human experience of lingering regret, an emotion further accentuated by the ensuing diction of “bitter fruit”. Throughout Slessor’s dramatic monologue “Gulliver”, one of the major themes is that of hopelessness, a familiar emotion that usually results in frustration and capitulation. The persona in the poem expresses the lack of hope within his exasperation when he says “I snap them, swollen with sobbing. What’s the use?” Regardless of the persona’s temporary escape, he is still restrained by compounding problems. Slessor amalgamates the poetic devices of sibilance, a caesura and a rhetorical question to reinforce the uselessness of the persona’s efforts. Consequently, the persona is driven to make the jarring, paradoxical statement of “for God’s sake, call the hangman” emphasising the depth of his hopelessness. This theme of hopelessness is similarly explored in Slessor’s anecdotal three-sonnet poem “Out of Time” where he employs repetition of the first line “I saw Time flowing like a hundred yachts” in the final stanza. The audience is harshly reminded of the relentlessness of time and is left with an abiding sense of hopelessness due to the realisation that the progression of time for any individual will inevitably end in death. Evidently, through Slessor’s adept use of literary devices to explicate accustomed human emotions, his poetry is able to effectively represent the embedded human experiences. Furthermore, his individualistic approach to expressing his convictions within his poems, evidenced by frequent use of the pronoun “I”, indicates the subjective nature of his perception of the discussed human emotions and is a testament to the notion that human experiences are varied and differ for each individual.

Cognizant introspection is induced when an individual is manoeuvred into considering the transient nature of life, that their progression through existence is finite. The awareness of the inexorable passing of time significantly alters the nature of an individual’s human experiences as it evokes powerful emotions such as regret and sorrow or culminates in instances such as loss and death. “Wild Grapes” articulates this experiential impact of the passing of time on individuals, creating a poignant memory of lost potential and the unsettling human experience of lingering regret. In the first two lines of stanza 2, Slessor showcases the debilitating ramifications of the passing of time. He introduces the audience to a memory of the past where the orchard once contained “cherries...and apples bright as dogstars”, utilising a simile that alludes to the Sirius star to portray the orchard as previously incandescent-like and brimming with hope and promise. Thereafter, caesuras, effectuated by semicolons, in the second and third lines of the stanza, “...dogstars; now there is not...An apple or a cherry; only grapes,” push the audience into the present. Here, Slessor makes use of terse, literal language that is blunt and abrupt to shake the audience out of the pre-established pleasant imagery in the first two lines of the stanza. The juxtaposition created by the absence of the apples in the phrase “...apples bright as dogstars; now there is not...” affirms the decay of the orchard, symbolising the decaying potency that the passing of time possesses. This degenerating power of time is imparted metaphorically in “Out Of Time”. Slessor uses violent and destructive imagery to convey that the passing of time vigorously rushes an individual’s consciousness into oblivion, “Time, the bony knife....takes me, drills me, drives me through bone and vein.” The repetition of “me” highlights the subjectivity of Slessor’s negative portrayal of time. However, he provides an alternative perspective when he states that time is “eager to quench and ripen, kiss or kill”, indicating time’s dualism as both a lover and a killer, a concept he similarly accentuates in “Wild Grapes”, “A girl half-fierce, half-melting...Kissed here - or killed here…”  Through this contradictory exposition of ‘Time’, Slessor reveals the prospect of disparities between the ways in which individuals perceive the effects of time’s passage. Thus, Slessor is able to effectively direct the audience into contemplating life’s impermanence and the nature of the varied human experiences that this reality imposes on different individuals.

Comprehensive insight into the multifariousness of human experiences can be triggered by a heightened awareness of the paradoxes and inconsistencies that are intrinsic to human behaviour. An acknowledgement of such factors within overarching human experiences will enable an audience to perceive the world differently and appreciate that their individual human experiences differ from that of other individuals. In “Gulliver,” Slessor utilises visceral imagery in lines 4-5, “tyranny of sinews...ropes of nerve and bone”, to create an extended metaphor comparing the essence of being human to being incarcerated. This paradoxical expression is used to give insight into the pains of human existence, asserting that even if a person has gained emancipation, he/she is still imprisoned by the very materials that constitute the human body. This uncommon metaphor is continually re-established throughout the poem by means of a lexical chain of words that evoke imagery of incarceration, such as “walls”, “dungeons”, “manacles”, suggesting that nobody, individually or collectively, is free from the mind-forged manacles of human psychology and physiology. Slessor’s choice of form, dramatic monologue, evinced through repetitive usage of the personal pronoun “I” and focus on the persona’s subjective experience, place the reader into the narrator’s perspective, one which may seem unfamiliar to most of the audience, thus effectively representing the concept that human experiences are varied. Slessor also exhibits this concept when he explicitly highlights the manifold prisons of the human condition through his use of culmination in “Love, hunger, drunkenness, neuralgia, debt, Cold weather, hot weather, sleep and age”, attempting to encapsulate the multitude of varied causes of pain. The persona’s behaviour from the poem’s onset to its conclusion is inconsistent; in the opening line, he bears a tone of determination and frustration, “I’ll kick your walls to bits, I’ll die scratching a tunnel”, however, his tone denotes resignation in the last line “For God’s sake, call the hangman”. The juxtaposition of these two lines conveys the suggestion that striving to overcome life’s obstacles is fruitless, a nihilistic outlook on life that was unconventional in Slessor’s zeitgeist, typical of his modernist nature. By exposing the paradoxes and inconsistencies ingrained into human behaviour in a subjective and unorthodox manner, Slessor is able to represent the variegated disposition of human experiences.

The quality of life for an individual is indubitably determined by the state of the human experiences that the individual is inherently encountered with, a phenomenon that manifests itself differently for each individual. Slessor’s suite of poetry commendably expounds this heterogeneity in his representation of human experiences. The myriad differences between the distinctive human experiences of each individual are reflected in Slessor’s poetic discourse on human emotions, the brevity of human life and both paradoxical and inconsistent tendencies in human behaviour. Amalgamated with adept employment of figurative techniques, Slessor’s poetry serves as an exemplary precedent in which texts represent human experiences.