Response to The Dover Beach and The Dover Bitch It appears that The Dover Bitch written by Anthony Hecht is suppose to be a satire and rebuttal to the Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. Arnold has a somewhat more optimistic view of love. He believes that the one thing that humanity can have faith in that it will not disappoint is love. Arnold believes that despite the hardships we experience as the human race such as poverty, war, famine, and other societal downfalls, our absolute hope was love. Hecht on the other hand disagrees. He believes that love is of a fickle nature and he illustrates this throughout his poem by utilizing sarcasm and comedy to make this point. Dover Beach takes place in England and in France. It is a story of a man who
is in love with a woman. The audience is not sure whether she is a wife or a girlfriend, but really that is neither here nor there. What is important is that she is in fact a lover. It seems that England and France are in war, maybe World War I. The man and his lover sit by the water and watch the moon reflect upon it, opening with a serene scene. The man's thoughts are interrupted with reality, a whole reality. He comes to realization that though the water may look beautiful it could be deceiving. The reality is that their country was at war. The narrator of the poem then speaks of religion and how religion has abandoned man because man abandoned it, and has now left him to fend for himself. He concludes by believing that man can only trust in himself and in no one else-- religion will be of no salvation to him. Hecht on the other hand offers an alternate outlook as opposed to Arnold. When this poem is read it is obvious to any reader who has previously read the Dover Beach, that this poem is a parody to it. He mocks the idea of love being a last resort. He makes light of the women from the Victorian era and their values. The woman in his poem does not possess the same values she is not quiet, but outspoken. She will not obey her husband's every wish, and she is not faithful to him. She is in fact having an affair. Which is similar to Arnold's poem; the woman is also having an affair. However, the difference is that in one poem (Bitch) the speak is aware and in the other (Beach) the speaker is oblivious. Another underlining difference is the values of the speakers. In Dover Beach the speaker comes off pretentious, but also a very conscience person. On the other hand in Dover Bitch the speaker could not care less for morals, comes off selfish, and has no concern for the world on a deeper level. His only immediate concern is enjoying himself and having a good time. Yet despite the fact that Hecht is making fun of Arnold's poem he is still somewhat jealous of the values of that era. It is an envy that I took can understand. I do not know if it is the movies or the stories that are written in and about that time period that creates an illusion of that time or draws an accurate picture. Whatever the case may be it seems that it was a time where people appreciated each other for more than what was offered on the surface. People also respected each other and were stronger in their values. We live in a time we people barely speak to each other, where neighbors are completely unaware of one another, and where men are selfish. I can understand Hecht's jealously.
Nearly everyone has had that dreadful encounter with the last person they want to see in places like the supermarket, dry cleaners, or the movie theaters. What follows are a few awkward moments of strained conversation while one looks for signs of bitter regret in the eyes of his or her ex. Carolyn Krizer’s poem “Bitch” depicts such a meeting. The poem brings the reader to reality of what really goes on deep beyond conversation while seeing an ex. Through the use of personification, diction, and tone Kizer delineates the speaker’s struggle with feelings of animosity, repression, and desire for reconciliation.
The film is set in Bodega Bay - a small town by the sea. All the
One of the ways Fahrenheit 451 can be related to Arnold’s Dover Beach is by connecting the absense of true love in both of them. Throughout the book, Montag slowly realizes that he does not truly love his wife Mildred. In the beginning, Montag believes that he truly loves Mildred. However, as the book goes on, he meets Clarisse, and begins to change his way of thought. He slowly begins to wake up from the dream world that he is living in. As he begins to know Clarisse, he slowly realizes that Mildred does not share the same deep passion for life that he does. At the beginning of the Sieve and the Sand, Montag frantically reads books to gain more knowledge. Mildred complains and kicks the books around, showing that her and her husband are growing apart. At the end of the book, Montag is talking to Granger, and says "... Even if she dies, I realized a moment ago, I don't think I'll feel sad (155)". This shows that Montag does not care for his wife as much as he thought he did before. In the poem, Arnold states "…a land of dreams ...hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light". The world in Arnold’s poem is a land of dreaming. While people are dreaming of true love and joy, there is none in the real world that you live in once you wake up from the dream. Once the “confused alarms of struggle and flight” wake you up, you realize that the world is really void of love and happiness. The world in Arnold's poem is a world parallel to that of Bradbury's: Both are worlds that do not contain love or light, as much as people in them would like to believe otherwise.
Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ the scene is set in London, yet based a lot on
The classic 1975 film, Jaws, takes place in a coastal New England tourist town. After a young woman is killed by a shark the police chief and the mayor have differing opinion on what to do about the shark. The police chief, Martin Brody, wants to close the beaches while the mayor, Larry Vaughn, does not want to lose any tourist revenue and overrules him. After another shark attack a bounty is put out for the shark. While a shark is caught it is not the one who has been terrorizing the community. However, the beaches open once again and there is another attack. Brody, along with oceanographer Matt Hooper and local fisherman Quint set out to find the shark.
of the film, but he altered the way in which the text is portrayed. Franco Zeffirelli’s version is set in the late 1960’s, meaning that. There is a time period difference and it makes it harder for people to understand as it is an older portrayal of the film. The location in this film is set on Verona Beach in Italy, which is contemporary style and twentieth century.
The Beach was no more, if not worse, than reality's true society. The community was challenged once, and failed as a whole. No one was willing to take responsibility for any of the actions or decisions anyone made. "The innocent eye sees nothing," proved to be true in the beginning, but as time elapsed, Richard prevailed and saw the truth of the community for what it was. The Romantic Paradigm's innocence was destroyed by the greed and selfishness of human kind, and in the end, proved that no matter how "perfect" your society is, you will always inherit the natural flaws installed upon you by society itself.
The title of this poem makes us think that this is going to be a love story with him and a significant other. But these expectations are not fulfilled by the text starting in the introductory epigraph. The title is completely ironic because this is not a “love song”, yet this story is about a depressed, lonely and weak man. The title makes us think that this poem is going to be a serious love song about J. Alfred Prufrock, but instead it is more of a fake love song. From the third line of the poem he shows a man who is unable to communicate, much less sing, “love songs” to anyone.
However, unlike the other works there is a positive way to treat the problem instead of becoming beasts, gouging eyes out, etc. In "Tintern Abbey" the speaker is living in a postlapsarian world consisting of "evil tongues", "rash judgements", and "the sneers of men". The speaker visits his memories where nature has "beauteous forms" where "sensations sweet" and are "felt in the blood, and felt along the heart". Fortunately for the speaker, nature 's power over the mind renders the mind from seeing what the fallen world consists of and instead sees "cheerful faith that the world is full of blessing". In "Dover Beach" the speaker describes the fallen world that lies before them that "Hath neither really joy, nor love, nor light,/Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain". In this postlapsarian world science and evolution is what kills essences such as truth, faith or love. Although, the speaker is in this lonely world of diminishing fate, he is capable of tackling the pain and uncertainty of living in the fallen world. Both of these works face the problem of living in a postlapsarian world where the speakers treat the problem in a positive way compared to the other works. Dover beach treats the problem of living in a postlapsarian world by being "true to one another" and in
Dover Beach is a poem of sadness that deals with the loss of human faith in conventional ideas and institutions. The setting of the poem is the eastern coast of England near the coast of France. Arnold begins the first stanza by describing the beautiful nature of Dover Beach: The sea is calm tonight./ The tide is full, the moon lies fair. Upon the straits; on the French coast the light/ Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,/ Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay./ Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! He establishes the peacefulness of the setting, yet the very stillness of the stanza summons a mood of reflective sadness, which is quite common in Arnolds works (Allott 280). The movement of the waves is a slow rhythm for they Begin, and cease, and then again begin,/ With tremulous cadence slow. The rhythm of the sea, along with the grating roar&#...
It is comprised of contradictory phrases such as, “change so that nothing with change (Szymborska, 2000, pg. 161).” The woman’s role in this poem seems to be the typical female persona of having kids, being submissive to the male, and reading Ladies Home Journal for fun in her down time. The woman is “Naïve, but gives the best advice. Weak, but takes on anything. A screw loose and tough as nails.” Naïve, weak, and a screw loose could be how a male describes her, but she would say that she gives the best advice, has the willpower to take on anything, and is as tough as nails. The last two lines of the poem read, “She must love him, or she’s just plain stubborn. For better, for worse, for Heaven’s sake.” For better, for worse is taken out of a traditional marriage ceremony and since they are married, she is bound to him forever and it his her duty to love and please him. Although this described role of the wife is not as common of a tradition today, because gender roles are not as defined in the post modern era, there are still multiple male figures around the world who believe that this is still the utmost duty of the
The initial paragraph lures the reader into believing that this is a happy lover’s poem written to woo a woman with whom he is in love. The steady string of compliments mesh together very well and leave a warm and happy image of the pair’s relationship. The imagery is wonderful as well, as in this example: “My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow” (Marvell 11-2). This sentence inspires a mental picture of a sweeping kingdom and all the vastness th...
John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale,” and Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” were written at different times by very different men; yet their conclusions about the human condition are strikingly similar. A second generation Romantic, Keats’s language is lush and expressive, strongly focused on the poet as an individual; while Arnold, a Victorian in era and attitude, writes using simple language, and is focused on the world in a broader context. While Keats is a young man, struggling with the knowledge he is soon to die; Arnold is a man newly married, to all accounts healthy, and with a long life ahead. Yet despite their differences in era and age, both Keats and Arnold write with similarly dark emotional imagery, jarring emotional contrast, and a consistent exploration of the effects that the natural sounds around them have on their minds and emotions in order to demonstrate that suffering is as incomprehensible a part of the human experience as it is inevitable.
"Matthew Arnold : Dover Beach." Representative Poetry Online. Ed. Ian Lancashire. University of Toronto Librairies, 2009. Web. 26 Jan. 2012. .
Since it is known "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" was written for Donne's wife Ann, it's not a stretch to call this a love poem. Most love poems, like those using the Petrarchan style, focus primarily on the beloved. However, in this case, the speaker spends most of his time defining the nature of the love they share instead of focusing on exaggerating his mistress's love. Therefore, the speaker leaves the "drama" of the typical Petrarchan style, and introduces themes like loyalty, spirituality and lust. In the poem, he contrasts love that is based on the body, with a spiritual love that is able to transcend the flesh and is based on the soul. When he says, "But we by a love so much refined(,) (t)hat we ourselves know not what it is" (17-18), he is basically based upon his faith to claim this love. Although he is encountered in a hard situation, he uses lust as a way of showing just how much bett...