Alone
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
The poem "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe perfectly fits the theme of finding oneself. Trough this poem, Poe expresses the feeling of solitude he felt troughout his childhood into his adulthood and how he seeks to find himself and all that other people view as beutiful but cannot see because of the cloud that took the form of a demon in his view. He seems to be searching outside of himself trough nature (cloud, storm, dawn, mountain) for answers that will give him identity and security.
Like Gogol, Poe feels he is different from others. He expresses in the first line of the poem, "As others were; I have not seen". Gogol found no peace in either the American nor the Bengali culture. Poe is not at peace withing his American culture, because his way of thinking is different from most of the people. We can assume from this poem that Edgar Allan Poe felt no one understood him in childhood and he learned to make peace the mystery that bound him--with loneliness, his constant companion.
Kevin Carter's Vulture and Child Image
These photograph was taken by Kevin Carter. The child was struggling to reach a ONU food center a kilometer away and Carter had been warned not to touch those affected by the famine in Sudan since they might contain diseases that could be spread. Carter left after taking the photo and did not help the child although he later confessed that he regretted it. He mention waited for the vulture to leave, and after some minutes tried to scare the vulture away. He, nor anyone, knows if the child had the stregth to survive. Carter won the Pulitzer price in 1994 for this photograph, but committed suicide soon after. Many speculate he commited suicide due to the guilt of being a mere observer in the tragedy. He left a goodbye note that read:"I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."
Kevin Carter witnessed many sorrow and torture to human kind. He tried to find himself by taking pictures but became depressed for his inability to be courages enough to be kind to those suffering. Carter's suicide show he never quite found himself nor put his priorities in check, for in his goodbye letter the first thing he mentions is money.
The Godfather
The Godfather. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Written by, Mario Puzo and _____ Ford Coppola. Perfs. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and James _____Caan. Film. 1972
The Godfather is a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola that is based on a novel by Mario Puzo. The film tells the story of the Italian-American Corleone mafia family from 1945 to 1955. It begins when Don Vito Corleone is the head of the family and leads the business. His American born and raised son Michael is a war hero and has just come home from the Second World War. Michael is the beloved son of Don Corleone, even though Michael denounces he will ever take part in the family business. Don Vito Corleone has old world values, strong Italian roots, and wishes to live his life in the way that cares for the safety of the community and most of all the safety of the family. Don is morally against the use of drugs, and there is an attempt on his life after he turns down an offer to protect drug dealer Sollozzo in exchange for profit. A climax in the film occurs when Michael visits his father at the hospital and does not find his body guards protecting him. He protects his father by mimicking a mafia bodyguard with the help of a visitor. After this incidence he finds himself volunteering to murder the people who wish to kill his father.
Trough the character of Michael Corleone, Coppola explores the mean by which we come to define who we are. At the beginning of the movie Michael takes his American girlfriend (which he introduces as friend) to the wedding of his sister Connie Corleone to Carlo Rizzi. At this time Michael did not want to be part of the family business. He flees to Italy and marries an Italian raised girl. He introduces himself to her father as an American, but he converges to the expectations and traditions of courting an Italian girl. He learns to embrace his Italian roots and after the death of his father Michael begins a violent mob war against the other five mafia families and all others who scheme against the family, which includes Carlo Rizzi. The killing of his brother in law tears his sister and the Corleone family apart. After the injury of his father Michael begins to make peace with his Italian roots and with the family business. This is similar to Gogol in The Namesake, who begins to make peace with his Bengali roots after the death of his father.
The Namesake
_____Company, 2003. Print.
Throughout the novel Gogol flees from the company of Indian people. He even evades his parents. This is evident when he chooses to attend Yale, so he does not study in the University his father is a professor at. Throughout his high school years he befriends American boys and when he brings them home he does not allow his mother to cook or treat them according to Bengali tradition. When he begins dating in college and afterward, he does not introduce any of his American girlfriends to his parents. After the death of his father he accepts to date a American girl of Bengali decent but she is also confused and at discontent with her roots. She is not happy to be married to a boy of Bengali background and finds comfort in engaging in a sexual relationship with another man. Throughout the novel Gogol seeks to define himself among the American culture and the Bengali culture, but he finds himself to be an American Born Confused Desi (ABCD). The clash of cultures Gogol finds himself in and the tangled ties between the foreign and American born generations will continue to prevail among families who have migrated outside their place of origin.
Numb
Finding ones identity againts the expectations imposed by family and culture is an universal theme. “Numb” is song that tells of the tangled ties between two generations, and the conflict of assimilating the life of the parents while discovering ones identity. According to Billboard News Report, “Numb” was the biggest song of the year on the chart—selling over 10 million albums wordwide. Trough this American rock song the public can empathize with the main character and explore the expectations bestowed on us by our parents and the mean by which we come to define ourselves.
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
Can't you see that you're smothering me?
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control?
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me
With someone disappointed in you
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
I'm tired of being what you want me to be
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
I'm tired of being what you want me to be
The character of the song stands alone in the crowd of students and seems not to find herself to be confident within any group. The character screams through her art work to her mother “…all I want to do is be more like me and be less like you…”. The character does not find the freedom to find personal identity because the character is focused on fulfilling the expectations of the parent. The strogest verse is:
“And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you”