Conversations with Linh

I met with my conversation partner Linh for the second time yesterday. She's Vietnamese and one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She speaks a lot of English, so we get along great and can talk about a plethora of topics. Occassionally, we stumble over a couple of words and we have to try to explain what we mean.
I knew from our first meeting that I would like Linh and probably look forward to our conversation times. Our first meeting, we paid attention to the time because we were both busy bees and we left right on time. During this second meeting, we went past our hour and didn't even notice. Linh had a packed schedule again but a girl has to stop and eat, so she asked me to take her to one of my favorite places in town. I assured Linh that I'm a safe driver, so I picked a frozen yogurt place on Hulen street instead of the typical places around campus and drove us there in my old mini-van. The frozen yogurt shop is called Yogurt Zone. It's a little place with 10-14 flavors lined up on a wall, and then a toppings bar. Everything is self-serve and priced by weight. I had already been there often enough to know what flavors I wanted, but Linh had no clue. I got some sample cups for her and she tried as many as she wanted before settling on kiwi-strawberry and peanut butter. When we started putting on our toppings, I found out that Linh and I have the same favorite fruit- kiwis!
Linh and I sat down with our frozen treats and talked about our days since our last visit. I told her about the rough week I've been having and she sympathized. We talked openly about personal matters. I even told her about my younger sister being admitted to a psychiatric hospital this week so she would understand why I seemed so drained. She was sweet about it- mostly curious and sympathetic. We moved on to a light-hearted subject and talked about Halloween. Linh loves Halloween and gets just as excited as I do. In America, Halloween is just something that most of us celebrate and love. For Linh, it's a new experience. She's lived in Texas for 2 years and had never celebrated Halloween before that. Linh thinks that buying an entirely new Halloween costume is wasteful and too expensive, so we talked about all the ways she could make her own costume this year. We made plans to go shopping together next week so she can meet some of the people I work with at the mall and maybe find a costume. I think we'll have fun.
It's amazing to me how openly Linh and I talk to each other even though we've only met twice. We've spent a little over 2 hours with each other and we're from two different countries with different cultures and ideas. Her family has different traditions than mine, but we value so many of the same things. She and I enjoy a lot of the same things. We talk about the same things that I would talk about with any of my friends- hair, guys, relationships, food, clothes, etc. We have completely different backgrounds, but we want a lot of the same things. I'm excited about getting to know her better and I'm glad we're doing this.

Poetry vs Prose, and "The Miracle"

After reading "The Miracle" and "Tea with an Artist", I thought maybe I'd like to go back to poetry. Poetry, typically, has so many less words yet packs the same amount of meaning into itself. Prose is so full of words and pages. The reader has to discern what is valuable in these words and what is just there. If all the words have meaning, then the prose is even more difficult to understand. Poetry can be cryptic but there are usually so many less words to examine. "The Miracle" is full of dialogue and thoughts and actions to glean meaning from. One must consider word choice and a character's behavior and so many other things in order to try to interpret the story. "Tea with an Artist" was just generally odd and I'm still not sure what it meant. Let's have another poem.

The couple in "The Miracle" is such an odd couple. They are two scientists who are also newlyweds. Their behavior doesn't seem like that of  newlyweds. The story says that they were engaged for four years and married for one, yet the two have never discussed religion? And she doesn't know the stories of his past? And they don't speak to each other before breakfast? Not even casually? I'm not buying it. They don't behave like newlyweds or people in love. I want to know why they married each other. The wife thinks that he is ugly and she has to be careful not to injure his ego. She doesn't seem to think her husband is brilliant. She mostly enjoys observing his actions, but I don't know why. The only time during this story that they seem to display love is in the very last line, when the husband "with an ecstatic face...tiptoed to the head of the bed and now, bending down, he folded her in his arms." Even then, it sounds methodical rather than passionate.

I wonder how this story would change if the wife became the narrator. I would be interested to see how she would tell the story and how the details might be different. She is observing her husband, so the reader would probably still get the same level of detail about the husband. I think there would be more of her own thoughts expressed, and it would be more natural in that regard. However, the reader would lose the viewpoint and distance from the characters. As the story is, the reader looks in on a scene between husband and wife. If the wife narrated, the reader would be in the story, listening to the wife observe the husband. The story currently contains a lot of the wife's thoughts but they are filtered through the narrator first. I don't know which I would like better: being immersed in the story, or remaining the fly on the wall.

Leda

After reading Yeats' "Leda and the Swan" and H.D.'s "Leda", I was struck by how different the two were. Yeats' poem disturbed me. "Leda and the Swawn" portrayed the story as a rape, while "Leda" made the story into a beautiful thing.
Yeats' "Leda and the Swan" centered around what was done to Leda and how Zeus victimized her. This story of Leda is harsh and painful. Yeats focused on how "helpless" Leda was and how little Zeus cared. I was bothered by the images of rape in the poem. It's short, but it's clear. Yeats' poem leaves no room for doubt: Leda was raped by the swan. The swan trapped her with "her nape caught in his bill" and continued although her "terrified" fingers pushed him away. Then, Yeats goes on to mention the aftermath of this rape- "the broken wall, the burning roof and tower, and Agamemnon dead." This poem made me sad. This side of Leda's story almost breaks my heart because she's been made so helpless. Zeus is a cruel predator in "Leda and the Swan". I cannot even begin to fathom how awful it is to be raped, but I think that this poem touches on most of the aspects of rape. There is violence, a victim, a predator who is "indifferent" about the victim, fear, and then the pain that continues long after the rape. Maybe, I'm one of the conservative readers that was going to misunderstand the poem, but I cannot help but be disturbed by "Leda and the Swan".
H.D.'s "Leda" is representative of her imagist background, and chooses beautiful imagery. It is in stark contrast to Yeat's poem. In "Leda", all the harshness is gone. It is replaced with warmth and color. H.D. focuses on the beauty of the swan and the scene while making Leda nothing but a flower. This poem still takes away Leda's consent because she is a flower, not a person, and how would a flower consent? H.D. says the flower "rests beneath" the swan, which implies consent. Either way, H.D. has turned "Leda" into a pretty picture as opposed to Yeats' disturbing rape. There is no turmoil in H.D.'s poem. The poem is all softness and beauty. It is an amalgamation of colors: "red", "coral", "deep purple", "richer gold". The color choices seem royal to me, especially the red, purple, and gold. The story told through H.D.'s poem is lovely. It is like a seduction rather than an assault.
I like the imagery in H.D.'s "Leda" more than the imagery in Yeats' "Leda and the Swan". H.D.'s poem is blissful and warm. However, I like Yeats' poem more because I think he shows a more realistic view of the story. Yeats focuses just as much on Leda as he does on Zeus' actions as the swan. He gives Leda a role in her own story. She has actions and emotions despite the swan's indifference to them. Yeats reminds the reader of what is to come of Leda's rape, while H.D. allows one to linger in a happy picture. I do not mind being disturbed or upset by Yeats' poem because it seems more honest than H.D.'s image of the story. It is my emotional response to Yeats' poem that makes it stick in my thoughts. Even with the harshness, Yeats' poem is captivating.