The Buried Life

Matthew Arnold's The Buried Life is such an incredible poem, with a subject that is able to last through the ages. When I interpreted this poem, I understood that it is about the difficulty and the desire to understand and become our true selves. I believe Matthew Arnold is trying to achieve an understanding of self acceptance that is so hidden and makes us so insecure that even our closest loved ones don't see it because even us, ourselves haven't accepted it.
"Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?"
The reason I feel this poem, this line especially, are able to speak to generations through out the ages is the human need for accpetance. Anyone from teens to middle aged people want to accepted by their surrounding peers, whether it be at work, school or in your social groups. The burying of what we see as flaws, and the hidden quirks and things that make us individuals, is not how our lives should be lived. I think Arnold is trying to get us to break free of the chains of insecurity that bury our lives because of fear, and in a sense, "let our freak flags fly".

Cry of the Children

Browning's Cry of the Children comes in an era where child labor is exponentially increasing alongside the Industrial Revoluation. Before, children would work on farms or in shops, but with technology growth, they started to work in factories instead as cheap labor. The urging for working children to "go out, children, from the mine and from the city" and play in the meadows presents the dichotmy of a society once agricultural, now industrial. Youth and life are associated with nature while the cold metal of machines are associated with death. The poem is not only drawing attention to the ghastly conditions of child labor, but also to the shift from nature to machine.

Cry of the Children draws attention to the conditions of child labor, forcing the audience to question society's role in taking away children's innocence. The poem blatantly describes the jaded and hopeless attitudes working children have toward death, God, and life. The ending lines say, "But a child's sob in the silence curses deeper/ Than the strong man in his wrath," indicating that though they are young and unwise, the pain a child endures can be more powerful than the petty vengences of a man. Children have raw emotion due to their inexperience, so they do not understand their pain as much as an adult does, but can feel it deeper than adults. Browning's poem calls for protection for the children and questions the morality of a society that uses children as another stepping stone toward power.

Hopelessness, Pride, or Animosity?

In West London, Arnold describes a coldness toward the rich and an interesting camaraderie between the poor. The “tramp” in West London sends her daughter after local workmen to beg, and the little girl returns “satisfied.” However, when rich people pass by, the woman lets them “pass with frozen stare.” I think there are a few reasons she might have done this. Arnold states “She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, Of sharers in a common human fate,” but he does not extensively describe the woman’s reason for this.  It seems most likely that the woman believes she and her children will have better luck begging from people who understand their condition than from the rich, who have no knowledge of the poor’s suffering. But I wonder if it is hopelessness, pride, or animosity that prevents the woman from begging the rich. She may know from experience that the rich will not help her, or she may not want to grovel at the feet of someone who looks at her as if she is the alien. The “frozen stare” she gives them may also imply her contempt for the selfish upper class, or even terror at the power they possess. Even if knowing the woman’s motivations is not key in understanding Arnold’s point in the poem, I am still curious to hear what others think about this.

More Children Crying?

In Matthew Arnold's "West London," he briefly describes a simple but saddening moment in which a young girl is sent out by her mother to beg. It is more than likely that the little girl was sent to do it because fewer people could turn away a starving young girl (however the woman did have a baby with her). Arnold observes that the girl doesn't try to get money or food from the rich and instead lets them pass and stare at her. This is most likely because the girl doesn't expect the rich to help her but they don't feel the need to. Other people in her class are more inclined to sympathize despite being in a harsh situation themselves. Arnold is clearly very critical of the rich person in this scene when he states that the person "attends the unknown little from the unknowing great, and points us to a better time than ours." This tone shows that Arnold knows that the rich think of the poor as 'unknown' and they are unaware that their own circumstance is much more fortunate than they realize. The poem provides simple but powerful social commentary reflecting the ignorance of the upperclass and the fact that the poor are aware of this ignorance and have given up trying to expect any help from them.

The Tone of the Times

I noticed a lot of similarities between Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "The Cry of the Children" and other publications of the Victorian era, particularly in their tone and the overall mood they create. For instance, Charles Dickens's "A Walk in the Workhouse," an essay written during the Victorian era, was very similar to Browning's poem in more ways than one. Both have what we would today consider an over the top depressing mood. The children in both poems want to die, which just seems like they're laying it on thick. In "The Cry of the Children," the fourth stanza shows a small child saying "It is good when it happens...That we die before our time," and in "A Walk in the Workhouse" you've got a nearly identical scene where the narrator comments about how a "morsel of burnt child, lying in another room...thought it best, perhaps, all things considered, that he should die." In this day and age, it's hard to even imagine children choosing death over life. The concept seems to repulse us. But I wonder if that's a consequence of the times or if it's just because we live in an affluent country? A hundred years from now, I wonder what people will think about what we consider "modern" and "postmodern" literature? Will they think it's just as over the top as the Victorian era literature we're reading now?

In poverty, hunger, and dirt

The tired and dehumanized woman in Hood’s poem is a clear illustration of what industrialized life does to a person. Between her harsh and seemingly endless ‘work-work-work’ she thinks fondly on the sky and flowers. However she only briefly enjoys this daydream as she must ‘stitch! stitch! stitch!’ Her meager mans barely allowing for her most basic necessities. This kind of life was described in Marx’s theory of alienation.  Simply put, alienation occurs in socially stratified societies as a direct result of workers being disconnected from their humanity as they are a simple part of a large machine. Hood’s worker lacks autonomy because she is directed and basically property of those who own the means of production. Beyond just being physically tired, it is draining on the soul. The ‘work-work-work’ pounds in the head and constantly interrupts the thoughts and feelings of Hood’s worker. When I read the poem I almost instantly thought of Charlie Chaplin’s film “Modern Times” which deals with the dehumanizing nature of the capitalist mode of production. Below is just a short clip, however the film in its entirety is available on Youtube.

The Buried LIfe

When reading this poem, I think it's important to not the historical context in which the poem was written.  During the Victorian era, there was an geographical shift in labor.  More and more people were leaving farms and going to work in factories.  Many thought of this as losing a connection to nature.  on line 47:

"There rises an unspeakable desire"

Here he is establishing that there is something that all people desire.  This something is so universal that every single human being desires it, but it cannot be named.  It has to be referring to societies disconnect with nature.  The word choice is also very interesting.  Unspeakable, which if you think of the definition, means that the speaker is unable to even comprehend the proper words to express this desire.   This idea is reinforced by line 48:

"After Knowledge of our buried life;"

The title of the poem is in this line, I feel like it is talking about the fact that all of us recognize that we have some intimate connection with something beyond the normal constraints of ours societies demands and expectations.  The unspeakable desire is to drop the responsibilities we hold and return to nature.  However, after rereading the poem I feel like this has a much deeper meaning.  The things which we toil and strive for are not the things that truly make us happy.  Rational thought would suggest that I should pick the best things in my life if  happiness is what is rationally the goal of my decisions.  However when another medium of exchange is  introduced, things become complicated.  Money buys objects which in turn provide happiness.  Or money buys 'time' to do something we love providing happiness.  People have erased these connections and simply equated money with happiness, ignoring the mediums.  So here we are a century later, working for money opposed to happiness.  The money provides us with the substance to survive, and possibly find happiness but it is a medium of exchange.  Money is not happiness itself.

I think Arnold was touching on a flaw in the society he saw at the time.  We are supposed to be beings of rational thought, yet we are not choosing the decisions that are actually best for us.  The things that are best for political machines and social circles are not the same as our individual needs.     

The hills where our lives rise

The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold is a beautiful and inspiring poem that urges readers to reflect on themselves and rediscover their passions in life. Arnold believes that, in the flurry of day to day labor and routine, we lose who we truly are at the expense of "all the thousand nothings of the hour" and their "stupefying power". We dream of experiencing things, going places, and accomplishing personal goals but more often than not those dreams never come to fruition because we become so wrapped up in the mundane hum of day to day life. Those dreams are what Arnold calls our "buried life" - it is the life that we long for but are not brave enough to sacrifice stability necessary to pursue. The tone of the poem, though, is not one of despair. Instead, Arnold conveys a message of truth and peace and a "lull in the hot race" that modern man finds himself stuck in. Arnold encourages man to fearlessly mine deep into his own heart and discover what causes it to beat.

Social Awareness In The Cry Of The Children

After listening to the in class discussion and going into small groups about the poem The Cry Of The Children I wanted to go into more detail about the voices of the children act as a social commentary of the time.

                “But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free”.  The lead up to this is how everything is happy and how the young in the natural world are free and joyous yet the young children who are not in nature are not free and happy but are weeping instead. It seems to me that at the time that this poem was written the social view of children had begun to swing away from them being small adults and actual children. My reason for thinking this is that for Browning to be bemoaning the condition of these children infers that at least some segment of the population would be in agreement with her.

                There was one passage in particular that did show kind of a transition from being young adults into children. In the passage the children say their our fathers but feel do not know the rest. I am not sure which is more oddly cruel, the fact that they only know those two words for the prayer or the fact that they are aware that they do not have all the words necessary for their God to hear them. I think that Browning uses lines like that to paint a looking glass view into the confusion surrounding what society was to expect of and from the young adults.

The Richer, Cooler Half of London

Matthew Arnold's West London is quite a bit different from his East London in that the social realm of the east focuses more on the poverty ridden/working class side on the Industrial Revolution while the west side seems to be more consistent with the beneficial outcomes. In West, what immediately struck me as interesting was Arnold's notion of the little beggar girl only stopping to ask for money from "labouring men" while letting the rich "pass with frozen stare." This to me implies a sense of pride even among the poverty ridden people on the streets. The beggar woman only asks for money from her friends or from people who she knows has truly earned it. This could be a social commentary on the rift between the rich and poor during the Industrial Revolution. According to the footnotes, the West side of town is affluent and wealthy, which begs the question: why do the beggars beg in the wealthy side of town but ignore the ones who would give them the most money? Arnold in the second to last stanza mentions that the beggar only asks "of sharers in a common fate" inciting the idea that there in indeed some sense of pride, but more so an unspoken moral code among the beggars.

Our Buried Lives

I really enjoyed reading this poem. I think it touches one of the most basic needs in every person, which is the need to know ourselves and what we are capable of. Some of the lines I appreciated in particular say "But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves-" This spoke to me and the desire I feel for not only myself, but the one my generation has as well, to be an individual. At the same time, to be a TRUE individual, would be the most frightening and lonely existence. There lies the rub. Arnold's poem plays to our fears and desires and in the final stanzas gives us his theory on them. "Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafn'd ear is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd" If we become lost in the sounds of the world and numb from it's regime, it's in the eyes of a loved one that our potential surfaces. Whether it's a lover, friend or family member, they take away the fears the world has burdened you with and make you feel special, unique; individual.

Ebb and Flow of Misery

In "Dover Beach", Matthew Arnold portrays the "turbid ebb and flow/ Of human misery". In the first part of the poem, Arnold describes the beach in a some what innocent way, saying "The sea is calm tonight" and " sweet is the night air!". His tone seems light and he is attentive to the subtleties around him, noticing even "the grating roar/ Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling". However, in the latter half of the poem, the outlook becomes much more bleak. Instead of the roar of the pebbles, it is now, as Arnold writes, "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar". The poem ultimately ends with Arnold suggesting a truce with his audience, acknowledging that the world seems to "lie before us like a land of dreams", and yet at the same time, "Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light". By putting these two different perspectives of the world into a single poem, Arnold is portraying the "ebb and flow" of human emotions and the constant struggle to keep up with that change. In the end, the world that Arnold realizes in his poem is far less certain than a world he originally set out to meet.

East vs. West

I find it interesting that in the poems East London and West London, both pain bleak pictures, yet East London comes with a ray of hope in the preacher's outlook despite himself being ill and overworked.  What is more interesting is that East London was the working-class area of the city whereas West London was the wealthy end of the city.  The working-class, a people who had it rougher than the wealthy, are shown to have a brighter outlook due in part to their faith in religion.  One would think that the wealthy portion of the city would be home to the most uplifted attitudes and cheery outlooks considering how much they have over the working-class.  However, their lives seem much more bleak in comparison.  It would seem as if whatever gains the wealthy achieved came at the price of their souls, considering the lack of a religious figure shown.  In fact, the only person shown is a prostitute, a sinner.  If anything, there's an absence of religion in West London.   

From class, we know that around this time, people are starting to question religion with logic.  What does it say about the working-class to cling to religion at this point in time?  It seems to give them happiness and hope.  On the other side of the city, however, the wealthy don't seem to have anything to cling to for their happiness.  Are they even happy at all?  Both sections of the city are depicted in equally bleak means, yet the working class have religion but the wealthy aren't shown to have anything.  If we are questioning religion using logic, then isn't ignorance bliss if it helps you get through the day?  Should we question it at all?  I have no idea.  I'm just throwing ideas out there at this point because this comparison is fairly interesting. 

The crying children.

The Cry of the Children provides an insight of the life of working children and the misery of life. These children were in fact the little adults of the Victorian period that we discussed in class. These children are in so much misery that they think "Death in life, as best to have". These children have obtained the belief that death would be more enjoyable than life because all they do is suffer and do labor. They then begin to question religion, God more specifically. They question his existence because he has not answered there prayers. These children did not get to experience a normal childhood; such as, innocence, joy,  and growing experiences. These children were thrown into a life they had no choice but to take and are miserable living it. In this selection were are shown sides that make us feel more sympathetic towards the children because we do not get to see their kid side. To experience what they have at such a young age makes a person grow up faster than they should and not enjoy life, as these children have.