How does Ellen Kay's diction reveal her meaning in "Pathedy of Manners"?
To intelligently respond to this prompt (and why would you want to respond any other way?), you need to work the poem thoroughly first and ascertain what that "meaning" actually is. You must be constantly on the alert for irony. Take note of the occasional oxymoronic or paradoxical combination of words while you're at it.
Also, be sure to read chapter three on denotation and connotation. Two of the poems, "Naming of Parts" (which we looked at briefly) and "The world is too much with us", are ones we will be returning to at some point this quarter.
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One question before my actual post- Do we have to do the questions from the book for Pathedy of Manners?
Wow, i've never had the first post. where is everybody?
This poem in my opinion, involves a lot of double meaning. as well as an emphasis on denotation.
One of the words that stood out to me was the word "ideal" in the 4th stanza. I looked it up on dictionary.com and found that one of the many definitions was " only in the imagination ( not real or actual). Ideal to me also symbolizes something that other individuals aspire to. To have an ideal house and family is to have something that others around you desire. And since ideal is only in the imagination, perhaps those around you assume that you're life is perfect, when in fact it is full of trials and problems. Also that that maybe she assumed that it would be something that it wasn't. Because on the outside it seemed so perfect.
I think this suggests strongly the theme of the poem. Mainly that she gave up things that she knew were good and intelligent, and instead chose to be praised by her peers.
The word "Brilliant" used at the beginning and end of the poem reflect this perfectly. Brilliant can mean smart or intellegent but it can also mean bright and flashy and beautiful. She chose the latter definition and regretted it all her life as her children were " ideal but lonely" and her meaning was " lost in manners".
P.s. Me and miranda discussed and did the assignment together, and it really helps to bounce ideas of other people. so i'd recommend it!
I am still confused about this poem; I cannot find the real meaning within it. In addition, I do not see many of the paradoxical words or phrases. So, if someone could explain this a bit, that would help.
Anyway, I could only find one part of the poem that had some meaning to me. This would be a subdued hollowness of her mind. I found a slight taste of irony in this because she is supposed to have a “brilliant” mind, she is “adored” by others, and can understand “symbolic logic” yet, “when she might have thought, conversed instead”. She may have used her intellect is situations where it is required, but did not use it in her daily life. Instead of thinking and exploring, she went on unconsciously living; she may have spoke but never thought. Likewise, I found it interesting that she can only “infer tenets of every mind except her own”. But I had trouble with the word tenets and I found that it is an opinion, doctrine, or principle held as being true by a person or especially by an organization. Which I could then conclude that she understood a universal principle held by others, however, she didn’t have this principle for herself or she did but never accessed it or understood it. She lives around herself, but does not live within herself. She has lived in other people’s aspirations and ironically never uses her own brilliant mind escape it. Maybe she could have been lost in some way, possibly in her own expectations, or the expectations of others, that now she is left wandering in the grooves of her own hollow mind. It is ironic that this so-called “perfect” woman has still yet to discover herself. That's what I got out of it.
One thing that really stood out to me about this poem was how the poet/speaker developed the unnamed subject’s intelligence throughout the poem. The first significant idea of what her intelligence is like comes from the use of the word “brilliant” in the first line, “At twenty she was brilliant” (Line 1). The word brilliant in itself is a very interesting word that has several denotations. The most obvious denotation is something (or in this case someone) who is bright, sparkly and essentially exudes (or maybe just appears to exude) happiness. But brilliant can also mean someone who is very smart, almost genius, and who is bright in another way then just their appearance. Though both of these denotations apply to the woman in the poem, it is the latter that is a major theme through the duration and really defines her life. This is the beginning of her life, the youthful, “Phi Beta Kappa,” part of her life.
In the second stanza it seems to me that she has kept her book and social smarts but has given up what truly makes her intelligent. The irony is heavy in this stanza with the phrase “cultured jargon” (Line 5) being the most prominent/obvious example. I find it interesting that the poet/speaker emphasizes that the woman is smart; she knows about Wagner and Degas, but yet only scorns and praises them because it is what society expects. She uses her “brilliance” for superficial things. This idea is essentially summed up in the last line of that stanza when the speaker states, “And when she might have thought, conversed instead.” (Line 8)
The third stanza represents, to me, what she could have been. She changed, she “hung up her diploma, went abroad,” and really lived her life. The most critical line in this part, the line that proves that she truly was a bit rebellious and left society, is the line where she “rejected an impoverished marquis.” Now at first it might seem like she just rejected a nobleman who was down on his luck and poor, but out good friend denotation comes into play here. Impoverished does not necessarily refer to financial issues, but can mean a lack of vitality or creativity, or in other words a boring, un-creative, man. She did NOT want to marry this guy, she wanted to see and learn things. But things went quickly south when she returned home. The fourth stanza shows that it wasn’t because she chose to but because of her breeding that she got married and had an “ideal” life, at least according to society (Camden covered this so I won’t).
The last three stanzas, though all equally important to the rest, mostly work together to sum up the singular point that she has wasted her intelligence, knows that she has wasted it, deeply regrets this fact, but has given up and now “shuns conviction, choosing to infer tenets of every mind except her own” (Line 23-24)
All in all this is a beautifully written poem about a tragic but realistic life. And I love it!
P.S. Listen to Camden, talking out the poem really helps with these assignments, but also isn’t as daunting as speaking/sharing in class.
I started out by looking at each stanza individually.
In the first stanza, we have a girl, 20 years old, with a good head on her shoulders and good looks to boot. "Captured symbolic logic and the glance / Of men whose interest was their sole reward." I took this to mean that her focus was on her work, and fellows interested in her were never given any of her time.
In the second stanza she begins to change and fall away from academia. "And when she might have thought, conversed instead." It seems she would rather gossip and partake in idle chit-chat than do any real thinking of her own.
The third stanza confirms this in the first line, "She hung up her diploma, went abroad." Instead of learning at college, she goes off "And learned to tell real Wedgwood from a fraud."
The next stanza reveals that she never makes it back to school, instead going home where, "her breeding led her to espouse / A bright young man whose pearl cufflinks were real." This is the second time breed is mentioned. It's as is she is being conditioned to act a certain way. The poem plays upon the stereotype of pretty rich girls being airheads, marrying into other rich families, turning up their noses at the poor, and having poor family lives.
Anyways, fifth stanza: several years have passed and now she's middle-aged, 43 and already her husband is dead. These two lines struck me, "Toying with plots to kill time and re-wed / Illusions of lost opportunity." At first glance I thought it was saying she was considering getting married again (which follows another stereotype of the rich and famous; multiple marriages), but looking again it seems more like she is not considering a conventional marriage but marrying again her desire for an education. Her "lost opportunity."
In the sixth stanza we see she doesn't do that though, for fear of how great she could have been had she simple stayed in school. She ignores her former focus on learning and instead drowns herself with all opinions but her own.
In the final stanza it appears that her breeding has trapped her. She has no friends, and any attempts she makes at real conversation fail, because her manners prevent her from that kind of conversation. She can't tell her "friends" off or turn down invitations to fancy parties because, well, that would be awfully rude, don't you think? And so she is stuck wandering in the same endless circle. Not just any circle though, a brilliant circle, just as she once was and could have been brilliant.
So, from that, I can see that the concept of her "breed" plays a part in the poem, and the word "brilliant" is also significant. I'm going to take a stab at the meaning and say that, Ms. Kay is saying that it's the girl's own fault she ended up alone, and it's pitiful because she had at least three chances in the poem to avoid the "brilliant circles" she ends up walking. I think even in the end she could still end the repetition of her life, but her conditioning and self-imposed boundaries, as well as the boundaries of the culture she belongs to, prevent her from doing that.
Going off of that guess on the meaning, I'm still a bit lost in pointing out exactly how the diction helps reveal that meaning. The word "brilliant" is in there fore sure. In the beginning she is truly intelligent, but by the end that intelligence has sort of festered to the point where she can't use it for anything and it ends up being used in a redundant cycle. Kay also uses irony in that the girl continues to learn, but every time learning is mentioned, it is more and more pointless. In the first stanza she is learning truly useful information. She is even in the honor society. In the next stanza she learns the "cultured jargon" of the upper class, and in the third stanza she learns how to "tell real Wedgwood from a fraud." In the sixth stanza, she is learning...in a sense...by only allowing the opinions and thoughts of others into her mind. This is the point where her "learning" is pitiable. I think the "breed" stuff ties in with the manners bit, in that throughout the poem she is gradually bred into a state of ineptitude, so that she must rely on others to think for her. I'm not sure just how the diction supports that though, other than mentioning breed and her breeding.
Well, that's all I've got on this one for now. I'm not so sure that I did such a good job on this, I didn't have a chance to bounce my ideas off anyone before typing them out on here. Haha, hopefully someone will be brave enough to read my whole post and point out what I got wrong.
This poem in my opinion shows the way women were treated and were expected to act. Women who were intelligent and brilliant weren't expected to use the knowledge that they gained. They were just expected to obtain it and then get married, have children, and not use the knowledge that they "captured". In the first paragraph the subject has just graduated and is all things brilliant. The second paragraph the subject is beginning to lose the education she gained and is learning how to become a "socialite". "And when she might have thought, conversed instead." Instead of having an insightful thought she has learned to just speak about whatever society sees fit.
I completely agree with Camden about the meaning of this poem. She assumed that her life would be more profitable if it was patterned after the “ideal” life of high class and shinny things. Once she got there and had this perfect life she found there was no substance. To illustrate this, the speaker used the line “A hundred people call, though not one friend.” She got what she wanted and found it wasn’t what she expected.
But now I must go back to the original topic of diction and I want to try and tackle what Matt was afraid to do, define brilliant. There is a clear contrast between the connotations of brilliance in the first and last lines. But this connotation is formed by the words around brilliance and isn’t explicitly implied by the word alone. The two lines are: “At twenty she was brilliant and adored” “Alone in brilliant circles to the end.” When I juxtapose these lines the contrast between them is seen because I bypass the gradual digression the rest of the poem utilizes to outline her pathedy.
As I look at the connotations of the words around brilliance I will show that they are in fact what cause this change in the connotation of brilliance.
Age: In the first line she is twenty, full of life, at the beginning of her adventures. Contrast this to “to the end.” Here she is monotonously trudging on to her death, waiting for it to come. It is the washed up old hag kind of death that no one wants. Some how brilliance is associated with both.
Popularity: At the beginning she is adored by all and is sought after by men. All want to talk with her and look up to her in adoration. At the end of her life she is alone. Left to live with herself (and probably a couple dozen pure bred, hairless, flea bitten cats). But how can two words with such different connotations and denotations like “adored” and “alone” be associated with brilliance?
Thus the change in the connotation of brilliance is seen by looking at the words around it. At the beginning of her life brilliance is meant to describe not only her intellectual superiority but also her dynamic and outgoing personality that draws people to her, but as she is engulfed by this pop culture and all of its “cultured jargon.” She loses this kind of brilliance and takes on a different kind of brilliance that has a different kind of connotation attached to it. This kind of brilliance is more introverted, but it is also pathetic and sarcastic because it describes the waste of her brilliance. It is almost selfish how she just sulks in her vast mansion and never uses her brilliance for good. She just “tenets of every mind except her own.”
I found this poem to be very appropriate for this chapter, because the central meaning for both the chapter and the poem is similar. In this chapter we explore the hidden meanings of words through connotations and denotations. Ellen Kay’s poem talks about the hidden meanings in society’s manners. The first stanza’s ending phrase, “of men whose interest was their sole reward”, holds many questions. What type of interest does Kay mean? Also in the second stanza the poem says, “and when she might have thought, she conversed instead”. That has multiple means as well. Usually, when someone converses with another, that person is thinking. This phrase represents that she is an intellectual woman who dumbed herself down to fit in to her new role.
When she went abroad, she learned and flourished. However, when she got back home she was “bred” into marrying a young man. That implies to me she wasn’t marrying the young man whole-heartedly, but more or less following society’s ideals for a woman her age. The poem keeps repeating the word “ideal” over and over again, because you begin to wonder whose ideals she is living. In the end, she is alone and still on the path she started, “afraid to wonder what she might have known with all that wealth and mind had offered her”, but in the back of her head she wonders if she could have done more with her life.
The word “brilliant” is used in the beginning and the ending. However, the same word holds different connotations. The first use of brilliant was extremely positive; it could have meant “smart” or “beautiful”, while the second use is more ironic and mocking. She travels on the same path round and round without an escape toward clarity.
This poem reminded me of one of my favorite song lines... "So impressed, the cocktail politics and obscure details" from The Employment Pages by Death Cab for Cutie.
I imagine the woman who the speaker describes as a master of "cocktail politics". Meaningless bureaucracy and social etiquette. That was my impression of what the "Pathody of Manners" is--empty relationships and catty small talk. It is the "cultured jargon" (cultured: politically correct, uppity, and educated
jargon: unintelligible or meaningless)
Phi Beta Kappa (or whoever this refers to) is brilliant, polished shining, and educated. But "when she might have thought, conversed instead" and so by idle talk and socializing abounded her own ideas and never reached her true potential. She is one who has a mental ideal of who she wants to be, and actually succeeds in becoming this stepford housewife but in the end she is "alone in brilliant circles"
(brilliant circles implying either high social circles or that she is walking in circles figuratively of literally in all of her brilliance wasting time)
I think in that sense the poem is very tragic. All of the womans aspirations were only to achieve what she believed to be happiness. But ironically she is miserable and "Her meanings lost in manners". She no longer has any flavor only platitudes. It tells the story of a fallen star. One who "captured symbolic logic and the glance of men whose interest wast their sole reward" She has everything but ends up with nothing.
In another sense I think the poem stops pitying her tragedy and her mocks frivolity. "rejected an impoverished marquis" carries a very bitter an resentful tone. Perhaps the speaker is the impoverished marquis who was rejected for "a bright young man whose pearl cuffs were real". The specific detail of pearl cuffs implies a particular significance. Since cuffs are of no true significance but the only attribute other than bright mentioned of the speaker implies he was no more than fancy cuffs.
"not one friend" and "tenets of every mind except her own". Short venomous phrases at the end of the poem arise after a shift "I saw her yesterday at forty-three". The speaker has seen her demise and speaks of it coldly. The poem has a strong sense of situational and verbal irony. The speaker seams both to both pity the woman and revel in her plight.
I feel obligated to conclude with some humbling comment dismissing myself for uncertainty or writing off any errors as only my faulty interpenetration as seems to be the growing trend, but I believe that no one writes anything that they don't think is at least partially correct. But despite this I must confess I was less certain with this post than most, but I'll let my copious spelling errors speak for themselves.
I looked up the denotation of the word manners and while it has over 8 definitions I pulled two which stuck out to me in this poem--"prevailing customs" and "way of behaving". The speaker is separate from the woman she describes and speaks of her with a certain distain for the life that the woman has chosen or perhaps been forced (used word "captured" perhaps as to mean was entraped) into the wealthy society as would be proper to follow "manners". I think it often comes across in oxymorons and paradoxes. The speaker phrases that the woman learned "cultured jargon" essentially refined slang and while abroad saw "catalogues" of famous places instead of going to them. The speaker states that the woman "when she might have thought, conversed instead" implying that she did little processes of the mind when strangely she has a degree and seems to pick up mannerisms rather quickly. Many people above have mentioned the irony in and "ideal but lonely [family] in an ideal house". I agree that this statement does make one look twice and contemplate the woman in the poems happiness with her life especially in contrast with the next stanzas. It reminds me of Betty from the movie Mona Lisa Smile. The ideal housewife from the 1950's she was not happy that she "lost opportunities" by marrying so early like the woman in the poem. The woman of the poem feels regret but it is immediately shoved away and the blame is placed on everyone else as she does not follow her own "tenets". In the final stanza the speaker notes that the woman has in a sense lost her way with no one to follow a truly talk to among hundreds who visit, kinda ironic, not a single soul to help her. The woman trends alone in a circle, in a well-worn path like many woman before her...
As "Pathedy of Manners" begins, the vision of a young , bright, beautiful woman is created. In this first stanza, it states that "she was brilliant and adored," which allows us to assume that she seemed to have a very promising and happy future. Her intellect and good looks gave the impression that she would do something different and important in her life. In the second stanza, however, there is a growing atmosphere that she in fact, not doing anything unique or great in her life, but rather following the trend that everyone else followed. "She learned the cultured jargon of those bred." By learning the "cultured jargon," the woman is beginning to learn, follow, and like what is expected and appreciated by the society such as "antique crystal," "authentic pearls," Wagner, and the Degas dancing girls. Knowledge of such things usually give the impression that one is highly successful and of high social class, and are used as guidelines to define who is successful. The first stanza has a certain feeling that this woman is going to be unique in her future, but as the third stanza begins, this feeling fades and is instead replaced with a certain mundane atmosphere. When the speaker states, "She hung up her diploma, went abroad, saw catalogues of domes and tapestry," there is an impression that all this is what the majority of people do and that the woman is slowly diverging away from a self-identity in contrast to what she seemed to be at twenty years old. It is in the fifth stanza that she really realizes how insignificant her life was. When the speaker states, "Illusions of lost opportunity," the woman reminisces the past and how it could have been different. Overall, I believe that there is a certain theme that is present in this poem. It reveals that we can be so focused on achieving what the society believes to be successful that we do not think about what we believe as successful, and eventually begin to feel a trace of insignificance in our lives.
Pathedy "Pathetic Tragedy" of Manners (the title informs the reader where the poem is headed). Kay's diction gives crucial cues on the wasteful nature of what the central character goes through and it creates a 'tragic' tone which evokes pity on the central character (the last two lines ties it all together). She had everything, or at least it appeared from the outside. Though she is very intelligent, her knowledge is comprised of useless facts. I suppose the tragedy is that she follows the cultural manners of what she should do instead of listening to her own thoughts (which was hinted by other people).
This poem illustrates how one can get lost in the useless rituals of mannerisms. When one act according to society’s set standards some of the feelings we incorporate into actions are lost. And in this poem the main character travels in these “bright circles” till the end. She chooses to reject the other opportunities given to her because they don’t meet society’s standards and curbs her intelligence to fit in, in the end though her decisions cause an unhappy and boring life. One paradox is “a hundred people call, but not one friend”. It seems that though in a hundred people at least one person would be a friend but society’s standard don’t make them want to be someone one is acquainted with, society makes the hundred people, people one is acquainted with for the sake of politeness. I think this poem gives voice to the oppositions for society’s limitations, which are thought of as being proper.
I think that this poem was genius in a lot of way with the diction and word order. The meaning can be found in the last section “Her meanings lost in manners, she will walk / Alone in brilliant circles to the end.” The girl that the speaker described was lost in her manners, and I think that the speaker intends to expose this loneliness through her ironic word pairs and various word choices.
The first three sections seem to describe her in a slightly ignorant, yet happy way (“brilliant,” “adored,” “captured,” abroad,” etc.). She is the girl that everyone wants to be around, and she gets to travel the world and learn all kinds of things. But at the beginning of the third section, the diction changes, using words like “breeding,” “espouse,” and “ideal.” These words give off a negative and sad connotation, compared to the previously upbeat and optimistic connotations.
Some of the different oxymoronic or paradoxical word combinations that I noticed are: “symbolic logic,” “cultured jargon,” “scorned Wagner.” These phrases were used more commonly in the beginning, towards that happier portion of the life of the girl; I don’t think that was an accident. It seems that the speaker used those phrases to point out the contradictory part of her life, and the things she did.
This poem, to me, brings both pity and parody to the woman socialite. The second stanza ridicules the woman's materialistic and superficial ways, as does the third. Two phrases stand out from that section: "cultured jargon" and " ..real Wedgwood from a fraud." "cultured jargon" highlights just what these people are: gilded, attractive, but empty. Jargon usually refers to the slang of a very specialized field. "Cultured" implies a more holistic view. This pairing detracts from the specialized nature of jargon, suggesting a mainstream, almost kitchy vocabulary, whose purpose is to appear learned.
The phrase " ..real wedgwood from a fraud./" is a standout because it is implied to be very important, as it is tied to the first sentence of the stanza, "She hung up her diploma, went abroad/". This adds to the satirical view of the woman.
At the fifth stanza, there seems to be a tone shift. It takes on a more pitiful mood.
When I first read "Pathedy of Manners", I was struck by how the author phrased her ideas, by her use of particular words in favor of others. When I read the poem a second time, I couldn't help but notice how self-referential the poem was, how it pursued quite often (and amusingly so) those brief, vapid lines of thought that its protagonist pursued. When I read the poem a third time, I came to realize that the author wasn't just writing about a woman who had misused her potential, who had allowed her talents to go to waste. Rather, the woman at the poem's focus was a cautionary tale unto herself, a warning of which we as readers must take heed if we are to avoid walking "alone in brilliant circles to the end."
Of the many words the author used, what stood out most to me in that first reading were her choices of "captured" over learned (in the first stanza), "espouse" over marry (in the fourth stanza), and "parry" over avoid (in the final stanza). To me, the word capture connotes action, suggests a movement or use of some kind of force, and that the author should place it as she did at the poem's start immediately established in my mind the protagonist as a lively, engaging character, active in her pursuit of learning. It is a persona that contrasts considerably with the persona she later develops after going abroad. It is a more nonchalant persona than she had previously, one that views a spouse as merely an accessory, that espouses, that adopts, a husband rather than truly marrying one. It is as though that husband is just another bracelet to slip on, another habit to embrace, and it foreshadows the disillusionment the woman faces at forty three, when she has lost her husband and doesn't know what to do with herself. She thinks of lost opportunities but lacks the strength to pursue them once again, as she did previously, for she exhausts her energies by convincing herself and others of her security, of her stature. She doesn't just ignore doubts - says the author, she parries them, the action not of a widow but of a fencer, and she does so through "nimble talk", just as a fencer might keep lightly on his toes during a match. After that first reading, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, for the dreams she'd long given up, and I felt I glimpsed briefly the poem's true meaning in that moment - I saw the tragedy of what had happened, of what had become of the woman, and I wanted to avoid it, just as I felt the author would want me to.
Yet I could not fully appreciate the magnitude of that warning until after the second and third readings. I didn't see just how inconsequential and silly the woman's behavior was until the author herself engaged in it, in the "cultured jargon of those bred to antique crystal and authentic pearls". The author's brief pronouncements concerning the woman's scorning of Wagner, her praise of the Degas Dancing girls, and her ability to "tell real Wedgwood from fraud" were almost as irreverent and comical as the actual behaviors themselves. Is not music still music whether or not Wagner composes it? Is not a plate still a plate even if it isn't Wedgwood? I saw then, and even more clearly in my final reading, how easy it is to fall prey to that ideology, to become preoccupied with trivialities and frivolities. I knew, after that last reading, that I myself had more than once acted just as the woman had, and I felt afraid. I didn't want to be who she was at forty three, to "shun conviction", to "infer tenets of every mind except her own". I wanted to speak for myself, to think for myself. I still do.
I feel like I’m barely scraping the surface of this poem, but hopefully after I write this, I can go back and look at other blog posts to help illuminate my ideas. I’ll give it a shot by myself first.
The main use of diction that stuck out to me with the use of ‘brilliant’ in the first and last stanza. As the poem progresses, this woman transforms before the eyes of the reader from the ‘ideal’ woman, to one who is lonely, with nothing to show for all the accomplishments that define her. I think the choice to use ‘brilliant’ at each of these points (when the woman holds two different positions in the eyes of the reader) goes to show how little this woman has changed—she is still the same ‘brilliant’ woman she was, but this brilliants holds a lot less weight, and is essentially useless.
We can assume that this woman is attractive due to the many men who sought her, intelligent, and over all, the envy of many of her peers because of it all. As the poem continues, we can see how lonely she has become in this. All the things that she won through her ‘brilliance’ are gone—children, husband, friends—and she is left melancholy, ‘alone in brilliant circles ‘til the end’. She can hardly escape herself. It just goes to show how useless it all was, and how double sided. Kind of like the paradoxical phrases that were littered throughout the entire thing. But I don’t think I could say much about those, because I’m still figuring out what they mean.
Man, I wish I were like some of you crazy people who can stay up ‘til like 2 to finish all my homework. It’s only 10:30 and I’m exhausted. Night!
Whoa there Mr. Smith (Goes to Washington (haha, never mind)), the day I am afraid to take a guess at the meaning of a word is the day I change my name! I was merely hesitant to make any rash assumptions.
Matt, I read your whole entire post and I thought it was absolutely phenomenal, with a capital P, just like your last name, now how ironic is that? LOL
I thought Ellen Kay did a phenomenal job at using diction to reveal her meaning in "Pathedy of Manners." First off, let me just say wow, what a great poem. Moving along, I must have completely failed this poem because I didnt catch the irony. I don't understand why a "brilliant and adored woman" ending up a huge, enormous loner is ironic. Overall I thought the diction used in this poem really helps the reader understand it, especially that word ideal, like some other people mentioned.
Probably the best way I can describe how Ellen Kay uses her diction to reveal her meaning is by quoting Master Tang, from the movie Kung Pow, "Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata... hiding amongst the candy... hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!" In this...special case the candy is the diction, and the Ellen Kay's meaning is hiding within the candy. So in other words, we have to understand the diction in context to understand the meaning...But to understand the diction, we must become the diction, and i've got no clue on how to do that, i'm not Harry Potter. Perhaps he who must not be named, err Matthias(that's his new name) Putnam can help us out!!
According to this line, "tenets of every mind except her own" she must have been big on gossip, and taking other peoples opinions rather then her own, thus FORCING the reader to assume she watches a lot of E! to not only keep up on important news within the celebrity world, but also...but also...but...ummm nevermind.
First, I want to say that I have been reading over Terence, this is stupid stuff again and it is really an interesting poem. I have enjoyed finding different meanings in words or phrases that I didn't notice when I read it before.
Like many people before me, I found the use of the word "ideal" very interesting and important with the tone of the poem. In the nineteen thirties the perfect and "ideal" wife and woman would be one who married a good man, had many children, was chrastmatic, and had a good background. It is interesting how Ellen Kay used this word, "ideal", with sarcasm to show her discontent with the way society portrayed women because she lived in the time when women wanted to converse when they might have thought (line 8).
The main oxymoronic phrase I found was one that we talked about in class, "cultured jargon" (line5). But, I also was thinking about the phrase when the speaker talks about the children. Do you think that "ideal But lonely children" (line 16) could be an oxymoron?
Fiona's point about the "perfect" woman not finding herself really struck me when I was thinking about the meaning. The diction Kay uses directly supports this, because the adjectives used in the poem are external interpretations, not internal reflections, until she is old and realizes no progress has been made in her life. "Antique crystal and authentic" (6) carry no beauty in and of themselves. They are attributes that don't have any realy value, don't mean anything. The contrast between "ideal" and "lonely" (15-16) children further supports this claim, because the choice of ideal has no meaning next to lonely, because the meaning ideal takes has no relation to the qualities that she finds out too late are the most important.
Since I'm one of the later posters, I will probably repeat some other people's thoughts, but I just want to get all my thoughts down before I forget them and before they stop making sense. :) The poem starts out with introducing this brilliant, young woman who was very charming. One line that stood out for me was how the girl the speaker is discussing captured, "the glance Of men whose interest was their sole reward." I thought this showed that the girl believed she was too good for just any guy and thus they got just her interest, but nothing more. I think Kay was trying to convey this image of a girl who was very intelligent, but also flirtatious, scorning opportunities of love.
In the next stanza, we learn how she seemed to learn to play a part, "scorning Wagner" and "learning the cultured jargon" of those of her station (an example of paradoxical juxtaposition). She is not becoming the person she could be. Instead, she's becoming just the average woman of her class.
Later on in the poem, Kay uses the word "ideal" to describe the woman's home life. The speaker says the man was "bright", just like her, and "they had an ideal marriage and ideal but lonely children in an ideal house." The speaker uses ideal as a form of irony. The woman married a man because he was wealthy, not necessarily because she loved him. She followed society and though their life is described as "ideal", the use of "lonely" in the stanza indicates that that is not true.
In the very last stanza, the repetition of 100 stands out to me also. It seems to be a hyperbole and yet it's used twice. I believe this is to show just how alone the woman is at the end. A 100 people visit and she has to face down 100 different doubts from them. But, I believe the most important use of diction in this stanza comes is in the very last line. "Alone in brilliant circles to the end." Throughout the poem, brilliant was used to denote intelligence, but here it is used ironically. She may be still living in proper, educated society, but you could hardly call her life "brilliant." It is not a happy or satisfying one, which makes its use at the end both ironic and somewhat sad.
While on the surface the speaker in Pathedy of Manners seems to portray the woman as a beautiful, intelligent, and sweet, but I have a different opinion after a certain line caught my eye:
"Captured symbolic logic and the glance of men whose interest was their sole reward"
While at first glance it read to me that the girl understood math (symbolic logic) and men looked at her, I re-examined the passage this time with the connotation the the word "captured" was more violent. As if she commanded attention from the men, as if 'womanizing' the men (meninizing?). This is followed in the second stanza by the line:
"She learned the cultured jargon of those bred"
First of all, cultured jargon is an oxymoron, meaning refined meaningless talk. Secondly the woman learned the cultural jargon of those bred, the past tense of breed, which got me thinking that the speaker was talking about that the woman had already learned the ways of promiscuous men. Which is an ironical juxtaposition of analysis since I claimed that the woman was 'womanizing' while the man or men were being 'promiscuous', going against the conventional sense that they are reversed, men=womanizers (gotta stop using that word, or I am going to go crazy like Britney Spears) and women=promiscuous (not all for both cases mind you). Any ways, the last part of the second stanza was also interesting. The scorned Wagner praised the Dega dancing girls instead of conversing with them instead. This struck me odd but after I found that an older denotation of conversed is having sex with, then I perceived that the woman was sarcastically amazed that this Wagner fellow merely praised the Dega dancing girls, and did not "sleep" with them.
Another thing that struck me odd was the fact that the woman had and "ideal" marriage, kids, and house, despite all of which the kids are "lonely." Finally, I found it ironic that the woman "tenets every mind except her own." At this point in the poem the speaker conveyed that the woman was struggling with her own mental problems but analyzed others' without looking at her own.
This poem is of a woman who is perfect in every way in the beginning of her life (more like in her twenties) but because of her vanity and her need to be the image of perfection, she lost all the time that she could have cherished. She could have made memories that she could reminiscent on and be happy of what she had, but she wasted it all away being someone that she isn't. It's ironic how she spent her early years being the "belle of the ball" but in the end, she is a nobody. That people only come and talk to her because she's there, not because she is their friend.
In the first stanza, her being a phi beta kappa, which means “love of learning is the guide of life” is ironic because she didn’t love to learn. Or if she did, it was more of learning how to seduce the men around her as she made gestures that were to make men look her over. “Captured symbolic logic and the glance / Of men whose interest was their sole reward” was pretty funny because, symbolic logic I would imagine to be something like the symbol of pi or the factorial symbol. Only I think she is showing symbolic logic of herself, and how she is leading those men on, making her seem really available.
In the second stanza, we get to form an image of who the speaker is, as he/she creates an opinionated comment of the subject in the poem. “And when she might have thought, conversed instead” says two things, that she doesn’t think of what she is saying when she is speaking making her one of those people who follow what other people say and not her own opinions. The other thing that it says about her is that she doesn’t think at all of the future, just the present. She spends the present being someone who she isn’t; learning how to speak, learning what is the mod of the time, learning how to distinguish what is a fake, but not learning what is most crucial for her future. An education, finding the RIGHT man (or maybe not?), deciding on what she wants her future to be. Stuff of that sort.
The fourth stanza is the turning point, where we begin to see the subject suffer from her decision. Having an ideal marriage, ideal children, ideal home. No offense, even though that is probably what everyone dreams for, living ideally with what they want, it is no fun being ideal. To find out what real happiness is, there has to be some suffering. But ideally, many people see life as perfect and always happy with no suffering. So when the speaker mentions the lonely children, those children are happy, but who else has the same exact happiness that they do that they can share with?
The fifth stanza is almost like a convict or a murderer trying to plot out what their next move in life is. “Toying with plots to kill time”, “Illusions of lose opportunity” similar to incarcerated people who regret what they have done in their past, but can do nothing to change it and all they have is the time to think of what they had done. Connecting this with the sixth stanza, the term “conviction” emphasizes on the feeling of being entrapped in the box that she built herself in. Again, we get to hear the speaker and know a little bit about them, the tone of disdain as they mention the wealth and mind that the subject could have used. The reader can tell that the speaker does not come from a wealthy family, and probably had to work for what they became. This poem is just a joke to all of the people who have the sources to become great, but waste it doing what others tell them, “choosing to infer / Tenets of every mind except her own” not using her own thoughts to make up her mind.
The last stanza is the laughing point, but also a pitying moment. Laughing at a woman who had everything provided for her in her life, but decided to use it against herself. Pitying her because she wasted her life in trying to become perfect that she became everything but. I think that’s the paradox, that she wanted to be loved and did everything in her effort (oh, this is the subject I’m talking about) to be loved, but in the end she became friendless, and just another person. Not making any true friends, not making a mark in her or anyone else’s life, she is just another speck of dust.
The diction that was used to write this poem I think was to prove how the real intellectuals are the ones that do not waste their life away looking for perfection. People are just perfect the way they are. The real smart people are the ones that are themselves. The speaker used elevated language to make it seem (to me) that she was referring to the subject and how she is missing out on the fun of words. It also has an effect on how we view the subject as well, such as that one part where she seems like a jailed person.
Yeap, that’s pretty much it. I hope I didn’t get too literal, please let me know if I did. Thaaaaaaaaaaank you.
I agree with Fiona; I also had some trouble finding key incidences of spectacular diction within this poem. After reading and rereading it, I think I have found some clever uses of varying denotation and connotation. There are seven stanzas to this poem, with each stanza gradually taking on a more negative, regretful, and judgmental tone. The first few stanzas relate the brilliance of the subject. Not only is she a highly intelligent woman, but she is the subject of never ending admiration and adoring glances. She’s cultured and comes from high society where epitomes of the Impressionist era, such as Degas, are praised. She espoused a “…bright young man whose pearl cufflinks were real” and had an “ideal” marriage with “ideal” children in an “ideal” house (14). Upon first glance, she lives a truly perfect life free from want, yet numerous and clever uses of diction serve to reveal the underlying shallow and superficial nature of her fractured and unfulfilling life. Ellen Kay’s use of the word “brilliant” is, well, brilliant in this poem. The word “brilliant” has numerous denotations, and can mean either shining brightly, magnificent and splendid, or highly intelligent and well read. As seen in the first line, the speaker uses the word “brilliant” to describe this seemingly ideal woman as highly intelligent, well spoken, and well read, as further supported by the evidence that she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. However, the use of the word “brilliant” can also mean that the subject shines brightly and splendidly, like a gem stone. Yet, although such a word generally has a positive connotation, when used in this poem, such a word takes on a connotation of being empty, shallow, and superficial. The subject shines brilliantly and brightly, yet there is this assumption and connection that it is only her façade that is so well polished. Like a gem, she is a pretty thing, meant to be admired and adored, but with no real use or purpose. With similar denotations and connotations, the word “brilliant” is used again to describe the circles that she will forever walk in. Similarly, the word “circle” also carries with it various denotations. The word invokes both the high class society that she will participate in as well as the meandering and directionless wanderings of her time in such a society. Her life is a never-ending circle, with no clear route out of the superficial trappings she has found herself in.
As already mentioned in class, the phrase “cultured jargon” is oxymoronic. The world “culture” has this positive, exemplary connotation that is so at odds with that of “jargon”, which is usually seen as crass and crude and associated with the lower classes. By using such a phrase, the speaker assigns to such high class and cultured lingo a negative connotation that is usually associated with the word “jargon”. The other phrase that also captured my attention is that of “symbolic logic”. Such a phrase isn’t contradictory or oxymoronic, but the use of the word “symbolic” to describe her logic and knowledge shows, once again, that there is no real depth or significance to her diploma or to the subject herself. There are also other spectacular incidences of great diction used in this poem, such as the phases, “toying with plots” and “catalogues of domes and tapestry”, but in the interest of time and space, I’ll talk about such diction in class.
We start with the life of the perfect woman. She fits the mold of what is expected of a woman. She is the married woman, who has the knowledge of culture and has children. The author mentions in the 2nd stanza, "cultured jargon". Kay points to the cultural norms that the woman has adapted to. She now understands how to mold into society and have a non-meaningful life.
We are then led into her life when she loses her husband. We are shown that the woman realzies the time she has wasted. She has not accomplished what she wanted to. "Illusions of Lost opportunity". The woman is now bored and toys around with time.
We are then led though into what happens when she loses her husband. She has now developed into an idle woman who just whiles away her time. The culture norms she has lived up to till then has left in her a sense of bordedom and a sense of voidness after the death of her husband.
At twenty, this young woman has a lot going for her. She’s part of America’s most prestigious organization, utterly beautiful and wanted, intelligent and well-cultured. At forty-three, she is empty, used-up, and has no family surrounded around her.
It is ironic that the woman started life grandly and ended the excitement prematurely at a young middle age. It is also ironic that she associates with the line “And learned to tell real Wedgwood from a fraud” (12). She is a fraud. “She learned the cultured jargon of those bred / To antique crystal and authentic pearls” gives the impression that she had to learn these manners rather than was born with it (5-6).
Her diploma doesn’t provide her any substance, for she goes abroad and marries immediately after showcasing the piece of paper. Ellen Kay makes her diploma worth very little. She writes nothing but trivial aspects of the woman’s life. “Saw catalogues of domes and tapestry” rather than experienced and felt the history behind them. She doesn’t seem entirely deep. She did “Rejected an impoverished marquis” rather than a young man she wasn’t compatible with. The term “impoverished marquis” makes her seem shallow for only caring about his wealth and social status.
Her shallowness reflects her entire life. Not many personal accomplishments stood the test of time. But she won’t acknowledge that “she shuns conviction [certainty, opinion, act of convicting, state of being convinced], choosing to infer / Tenets [principle, believe generally held to be true] of every mind except her own. She is more preoccupied with the masses around her – “ideal marriage, and ideal / But lonely children in an ideal house” – never taking in much. “Her meanings lost in manners, she will walk / Alone in brilliant circles to the end” (27-28). Ellen Kay sets this completely bright and talented young woman as having bare insides.
I'd read a book about the woman. It would be deep because she is not.
And I love your E! reference Scott.
I'm not so sure that Ellen Kay's diction reveals her meaning so much as her use of irony, oxymorons, and paradoxes does, although diction does play a role in this as well. The first one that struck me was line 5, "She learned the cultured jargon of those bred...", where jargon has a connotation of being dumbed-down, layman speak, but cultured people normally speak in more extravagant manners. She also scorned Wagner. Who would ever think of doing such a thing?
Line 11, a marquis is not usually impoverished. I'm not sure what the real meaning of having an impoverished marquis is, but it's certainly oxymoronic.
The only other real paradox was that she had an ideal marriage with ideal, albeit lonely, children. Ideally, children are not lonely.
Is there also a bit of irony in the fact that she was sought after for every dance in her 20s, but at 43, a hundred people call, not a single one of them a friend? Perhaps? Maybe? Either way, all of this diction/irony conveys Kay's meaning in a somewhat solemn manner. The first three stanzas were light and had a relatively pleasant tone, but in the conclusive stanzas, the poem itself seemed to become heavy and weary with age, just like the woman did. It became somewhat depressing to re-read this. It reminded me of a sort of long-term karma. The meaning itself, I think, is to not scorn those who you believe should be scorned, because you yourself are not the all-determining deity of social life. Something along those lines.
Everyone's posts are frighteningly long this time (because of how much content they're packed with, of course), though many are usually not.
So I think I'll try to make this one of my shorter posts, just for kicks---since mine are usually not.
A list of things that I found interesting in "Pathedy of Manners":
- The use of line breaks is very interesting. The best example, I think is that of lines 19-20. "Toying with plots to kill time and re-wed" so soon after "her husband one year dead" (18) makes for an interesting moment of thought before the sentence is revealed to continue with "to re-wed / illusions of lost opportunity." In slightly different example, "Tenets of every mind except her own" (24) on its own line has an interesting independent effect. Line breaks have this sort of power, it seems.
- Words like "cultured" (5) and "authentic" (6) that usually have quite positive connotations are used in very negative ways, with context and oxymoron.
- "symbolic logic" (3), "cultured jargon" (5), "impoverished marquis" (11), etc. Reminds me of "With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage" in Act 1 Scene 2, with a similar effect.
- Some really skillful use of connotation, like in "espouse" (13). Rather than marry this fellow in a heartfelt declaration of love, she carefully comes to be in a state of espousal. This tone is reflected in much of what our lady does.
The final interesting thing:
It seems that I don't quite agree with the judgments of my peers on this one. I didn't feel that our young lady was worthy of quite this much... blame.
I really feel that people are being a bit harsh in this respect, as if she had committed some sort of dire crime in not being able to grow past her cultural expectations. There should be a bit more pity and sympathy, if anything---it's certainly an issue that most everyone has to confront to some degree, in their own way.
It's almost as if... people easily went along with the speaker's point of view instead of thinking about it from their own, really. Because this speaker-observer definitely has a perspective of his/her own. (Most likely a "her.")
For me, this poem seems to describe a woman who has led her life as society has deemed most appropriate. The speaker talks about how the woman had chances to live her life as she would have been happiest, but instead tried to fit in with society. In her attempt to do that she ended up alone walking in brilliant circles. It was ironic that she was in an ideal marriage, in an ideal house, with lonely but ideal children. She had what was considered to be an ideal life, but it wasn’t- at least not for her. Also, it can not be that ideal of a household if the children are lonely. A paradoxical combination of words that stood out to me was, ‘A hundred people call, though not one friend’ (25). Seems strange that out of all those people, not one of them was a friend. The choice to live her life differently than what she would have wanted ended up costing her her happiness.
I would have posted this sooner, but my computer wouldn't let me.
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