Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: Dialogue of Life and Death (A Review of the Chicago Production)

     In Dianne Luce's article, "Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: Dialogue of Life and Death (A Review of the Chicago Production)," she reviews the Chicago Production of the play, McCarthy's influence on the production, and also the play itself.

Actors in the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre Production in Chicago

I found the commentary on McCarthy's relationship with the production as the most interesting part of the article. It is easy to forget sometimes that authors do not just hand over their work to be performed as a play or produced as a movie without having some say in that performance (Check out this article about author's feelings after having their books turned into movies: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/hollywood-ate-my-novel-novelists-reveal-what-its-like-to-have-their-book-turned-into-a-movie-6940772.html). For example, in the scene where Black cooks dinner for White, McCarthy had originally scripted the cooking to take place off-stage in order to allow for an intermission. However, the director for the Steppenwolf production thought that an intermission would interrupt the drama and therefore let the play continue for the full-length of time (similar to the movie). Interestingly enough, our class watched the movie with a kind of intermission as the movie was split between two different class days. I wonder if our perception and conversation about the movie would have changed if we had watched it in its entirety at one time.
     Luce also discusses the significance of the title "The Sunset Limited." She says that "to ride the Sunset Limited is to take the final journey, to die, to ride west of everything." I think the last description is most interesting, "to ride west of everything." Although "The Sunset Limited" takes place in New York, in reality the Sunset Limited is an Amtrak train that rides West from Louisiana to California. Luce seems to be suggesting that the traveling west of the real train is also symbolic of White's decision to commit suicide.

Triad Stage Production of The Sunset Limite below:

   

Primacy in the Sunset Limited

     Cormac McCarthy's play and subsequent movie The Sunset Limited offers a snapshot of a pivotal moment in the lives of the two main characters (and only characters for that matter), White and Black. In the scene that makes up the entire plot White has just attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a train called the Sunset Limited and is now sitting at the kitchen table of the man who pulled him out of the way, Black. What ensues is a long dialogue about God, religion, and the purpose of life (if there is one).
     On the related note of life and its purpose, I recommend Nick Hornby's How to Be Good, like The Sunset Limited it is not necessarily "satisfying," but it does raise questions about what "we" want out of life and how to get it (if we even can). This quote from Hornby's book seems very related and pertinent to White's dilemma:

“You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in...” 

     It seems to me that White chose his fate, he would rather "bleed to death" than keep the knife in that is making his life unbearable. He would rather commit suicide than suffer for the rest of his life. It was Black's intervention, saving his life, that either temporarily or permanently prevented his suicide. 

     I found the idea of "primacy" incredibly interesting in both the film and play. What do we put first and why? How does that effect our life? Does a certain order dictate whether your life is purposeful? For example, what if I valued material wealth above all other things? I would cut down rainforests, fire thousands of employees, cheat and trick consumers, etc. etc. in order to gain the thing that I wanted. However, what if I valued charity above all else? I may spend every extra penny not spent on necessities giving to the poor and donating to children's hospitals. In this case it does seem as if one life is better than the other, but what happens in those middle areas? Where the primacy of life gets muddled and we are not sure what should go first. What about religion, Black's perspective? Shouldn't God and devotion to Him, in that case, be the ultimate priority? 

It seems strange to compare "Black" and "White." The two terms typically signify a "right" or "wrong" way, with no room for a gray area. However, the play and film seem to end stuck in grayness. 

Shakespeare's "Spring"

Spring by William Shakespeare 

(song from Love's Labour's Lost) 

When daisies pied and violets blue

   And lady-smocks all silver-white

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

   Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

                         Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

   And merry larks are plowmen’s clocks,

When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

   And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

                         Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!

     













     My first impression of William Shakespeare's Spring was that it had a very musical and whimsical quality. This made perfect sense when I read the footnote saying that Spring was actually a verse of a song from Love's Labour's Lost. In this scene, the village idiots/goofballs of the play are doing the comical singing. 

     However, the greatest sounds of the poem come not from the singing itself or the allusion to sound (the cuckoos mocking and singing, the unpleased married ear, and the merry larks) but rather from the purposed arrangement and structure of the words within the poem-- the scansion. Spring is not quite the typical Shakespearean sonnet, but comes very close to the mark. It contains nearly 14 lines (it has 18-20, depending if you count the two "cuckoos"), it ends with a couplet, and has a rhyme scheme of abab ccdd efef ccdd (similar, but not quite the same). The lines in Spring contain either 8 or 9 syllables (with the majority being 8). This establishes a subtle rhythm and is partially the reason for its sing-song quality. I honestly cannot figure out the meter of the poem, I can't say that I am experienced enough. I know that Shakespeare prefers Iambic Pentameter, but this does not seem to be the case within this poem. 

     The end rhymes in Spring, such as blue/hue, white/delight, and clocks/smocks, seem to carry the reader lightly from one verse to the next. The sound of this movement, when spoken aloud or sung, pairs nicely with the silly and mocking quality of the lyrics (the mocking of the cuckoo bird is related to the word cuckold:  a word for a man whose wife is cheating on him). Finally, repetition is important to the sound quality of poetry/music. In Spring, "cuckoo" is repeated often as are the lines "The cuckoo then, on every tree,// Mocks married men; for thus sings he,//Cuckoo;//Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear//Unpleasing to the married ear!" The repetition enhances the sounds of mockery as well as the human imitation of the cuckoo's sound. 

Haiku

Friends

The dark theater,

ballet shoes and musicals, 

remind me of you. 

Response to "The Red Wheelbarrow"

"The Red Wheelbarrow"
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

     I chose this poem because as soon as I read it I was transported back to middle or maybe high school when we read this poem as a class. I definitely remember there being a big uproar because many people didn't consider this to be a poem and didn't know what we were supposed to 'get' out of it. I've always loved the imagery and senses that can be experienced by the rich, albeit simple, words.
     The lack of capitalization and the sole period as a punctuation mark add to the simplicity of this poem. It makes me think of a simpler time in life, when many families kept a small garden and a few animals for food. The poem is like a photograph, a small snapshot of something much bigger.
     The line "so much depends" alludes to this bigger picture. What depends on the red wheel barrow? What does the wheel barrow look like? We know that it is "glazed with rain water," but I also like to imagine it rusted and a little wobbly like one from my childhood. The choice of "glazed" gives the image a shimmering and shiny quality. Since we know that it has rained, this poem allows me to smell fresh spring grass right after the rain. I also think of mud on my shoes and footprints and wheel barrow prints all through the yard. The wheel barrow is "beside the white chickens" which adds a little music (clucking and strutting through the dirt) to the poem. Chickens make a lot of noise and are quite beautiful, especially white chickens next to a red wheel barrow. The colors go together nicely.
     Although short, this poem does not lack. If I could breathe this poem, I would breathe in a lot of old memories. I could breathe in the sunshine, a soft breeze, the wet and muddy ground, and the sensation of a peaceful and simple day.

Response to Emily Brontë's "The Night-Wind"

 The Night-Wind by Emily Brontë

In summer's mellow midnight,
A cloudless moon shone through
Our open parlor window
And rosetrees wet with dew.

I sat in silent musing,
The soft wind waved my hair:
It told me Heaven was glorious,
And sleeping Earth was fair.

I needed not its breathing
To bring such thoughts to me,
But still it whispered lowly,
"How dark the woods will be!

"The thick leaves in my murmur
Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem."

I said, "Go, gentle singer,
Thy wooing voice is kind,
But do not think its music
Has power to reach my mind.

"Play with the scented flower,
The young tree's supple bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow."

The wanderer would not leave me;
Its kiss grew warmer still--
"O come," it sighed so sweetly,
"I'll win thee 'gainst thy will.

"Have we not been from childhood friends?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou hast loved the night
Whose silence wakes my song.

"And when thy heart is laid at rest
Beneath the church-yard stone
I shall have time enough to mourn
And thou to be alone."

The Night Window by Runda Alamour

My fingers pry
the stubborn window open, and
I breathe in the charcoal sky,
I worship the whispering land.

Thoughts, sharp as razor blades,
rip through my chest,
and I wonder if you know the shades
between life and death?

Was it you, calling to
me? Have your tears
become the morning dew?
Have your lips affirmed my fears?

Tell me!
Has your soul suffered, as
I have? Can I be free,
has this world no mercy?

Oh whistling wind,
haunting creature of the night,
I am pinned
and pressed beneath your might. 

No!
It is not wind, nor Earth tonight,
It is you, my ghostly love, so
sweet and terrible within my sight.

Oh Catherine! Oh love!
Come in! Come in!
Darling, sweet dove,
ease the tattered heart within.

The shutters gasped,
I whispered her name,
the candle crashed,
and I was engulfed in blame.

~~
     After reading The Night-Wind I thought back to Emily Bronte's book "Wuthering Heights." There is a scene in the beginning where Heathcliff is begging the ghost of Catherine to come through the window, but she pays no attention. This poem is inspired by both the poem and the novel.

My Favorite Poem-- "Writing" by Howard Nemerov

I wanted to share my favorite poem..

Writing

BY HOWARD NEMEROV

The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters   

these by themselves delight, even without   

a meaning, in a foreign language, in

Chinese, for instance, or when skaters curve   

all day across the lake, scoring their white   

records in ice. Being intelligible,

these winding ways with their audacities   

and delicate hesitations, they become   

miraculous, so intimately, out there

at the pen’s point or brush’s tip, do world   

and spirit wed. The small bones of the wrist   

balance against great skeletons of stars   

exactly; the blind bat surveys his way   

by echo alone. Still, the point of style   

is character. The universe induces

a different tremor in every hand, from the   

check-forger’s to that of the Emperor

Hui Tsung, who called his own calligraphy   

the ‘Slender Gold.’ A nervous man

writes nervously of a nervous world, and so on.

Miraculous. It is as though the world

were a great writing. Having said so much,   

let us allow there is more to the world   

than writing: continental faults are not   

bare convoluted fissures in the brain.   

Not only must the skaters soon go home;   

also the hard inscription of their skates

is scored across the open water, which long   

remembers nothing, neither wind nor wake.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171411

Emily Dickinson's "We Grow Accustomed to the Dark"

Below, I created an interactive/visual version of Emily Dickinson's We Grow Accustomed to the Dark. I don't think it needs a visual version, the words are enough, I just had the idea and wanted to explore it a bit.

We Grow Accustomed to the Dark

We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step
For newness of the night --
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --
And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darkness --
Those Evenings of the Brain --
When not a Moon disclose a sign --
Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead --
But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight --
And Life steps almost straight.

Emily Dickinson

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-grow-accustomed-to-the-dark/

 This is also pretty cool... a visual poetry video by a student.

     What I like best about We Grow Accustomed to the Dark is the cadence and silkiness of the words when read aloud. They convey a sense of mystery and uncertainty. Dickinson's use of rhyme is subtle and not forced which is a style that I appreciate. Many times, I think that forcing a poem to perfectly rhyme takes away its integrity and power.

     I think the pronoun 'we' is important in implying that the experience described is a collective one. The experience of finding the way and adjusting to the dark is yours, mine, and therefore ours. Dickinson describes the literal adjustment of our eyes to darkness as well as the figurative. We all know the feeling of stepping the dark and physical sensation of our eyes adjusting. But what does it mean to adjust to the dark figuratively? She ends the poem by saying 'And Life steps almost straight' and I can't help but think that the result of our adjustment is the ability to see life from another perspective.

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" paragraph

     The world was sodden with gray. Crabs scuttled under the feet of a sick child. In the courtyard, an old man appeared looking as bleak as the dripping sky. He had enormous wings but they flapped futilely. He was imprisoned with the chickens who provided neither company nor comfort. The people questioned whether he was a beast, an angel, or a man? The winged man's miracles were unmiraculous and narrow minds soon moved along. Crabs scuttled under the feet of a healthy child and the winged man flew away. His nature was never revealed.

Toni Morrison's "Recitatif"

     After reading through "Recitatif" twice (a few days apart), I'm still trying to wrap my head around different aspects of the story. After the first couple pages I thought that this would be a story about a black girl and a white girl who would develop a friendship, reunite, and defy the racial tensions of their time. However, stories are not always quite that satisfying. When Roberta coldly talked to Twyla at Howard Johnson, I was crushed. When they met up at the grocery and reminisced, I was elated, but then I was crushed again.
     What I found most interesting about "Recitatif" was the idea of perception. Twyla describes her situation at St. Bonny's by saying: "...we weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were dumped" (131). What Twyla is communicating is the discrepancy between society's ideas and feelings about orphans/kids in a shelter. The children who lost their parents due to sudden death/illness/etc. were pitied and comforted. However, Twyla (who has been "dumped") has a low self-esteem because she feels that in a way she is unwanted. Even the other children view Twyla and Roberta differently although they are in the same situation living in the shelter.
     The other main issue with perception in this story is Roberta's and Twyla's versions of the incident where Maggie falls down in the orchard and neither one helps her. After reading this story, I still can not figure out the truth (which is probably intentional.. and does it matter?). At first I thought that Roberta envisioned Maggie as black to give herself an excuse for not helping her or that Twyla envisioned Maggie as white to hide her shame. Either, or neither, of these may be true but I think what matters is that neither child stood up for someone who couldn't stand up for themselves. Is this a reflection on the racial turmoil in the story? Absolutely. If someone is being mistreated and abused, isn't being silent just as bad as being the one mistreating or abuser? I also think it is interesting how flippantly Twyla regards the Puerto Ricans, upstate Indians, and Koreans. She uses a tone that makes it seem that it should be surprising that she was treated worse than them. She also expresses shock when she thinks that Roberta married a "chinaman."
     There is a lot to discuss within this story and I look forward to exploring it in class, I will undoubtedly understand more than I do now after discussion. My favorite quote from this story is: "There was this silence that came down right after I laughed. A silence it was her turn to fill up" (135).

Toni Morrison Talks about Writing

    

James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"

     To start of this post I want to share my list of notes/thoughts that I jotted down while I read and I will try to address more or less all of them (they are woven together): darkness vs. light, the 'outside,' childhood, purpose of life, sound/ listening/ music, narrator's tone/description often pessimistic, suffering, and alikeness of father/brother, father/son, narrator/Sonny.
   
     "Sonny's Blues" addresses the opposing darkness and light of both the narrator's and Sonny's lives. In the opening paragraph the narrator is described as being "trapped in the darkness which roared outside" (75). This darkness is mentioned over and over again throughout the short story as a "menace" (72), the place where children who do not play jacks and jump rope hang out (82), and the place where the old folks had come from and where children were going (83). This darkness could refer to many things-- the darkness inside of ourselves? the dangers of the streets of Harlem? the harsh realities of life, especially when exposed to children? and/or loss and suffering? Baldwin seems to distinguish the darkness as a part of the outside, but I'm not sure that I see a difference between the outside and the inside (yet?). It seems to me that the darkness envelops everyone everywhere, it is just more 'silent' on the inside.

***

     One passage that strikes me the most in this short story is found on page 88:

     "Well, Sonny," I said gently, "you know people can't always do exactly what they want to do--"
     "No, I don't know that," said Sonny, surprising me. "I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?"
     "You getting to be a big boy," I said desperately, "it's time you started thinking about your future."
     "I'm thinking about my future," said Sonny, grimly. "I think about it all the time."

     This dialogue makes me think of the perennial question, "What do we live for?" Is it true that we go to school, then go to more school, to get a job, in order to make money or to be 'serious' ? I would like to think there is more to it than that-- that between that mix there is room for passion, love, and joy (as is Sonny's relationship with music). Is this realization a part of the narrator's often bitter tone? Does he realize that although Sonny has problems with addiction, he followed his dreams/passions, unlike himself (maybe?). There are many similarities between the narrator and his brother, they essentially had the same childhood until their parents died (they both stole from the same stores, experimented with sex in basements, and hurled tin cans and bricks from roofs [pg. 81]). I think this relationship is very closely linked with reality. Siblings can grow up in the same situations in life and turn out very different from each other, I can notice that with my own relationship with my brother. For more information on this from a research standpoint check out this NPR article.

***

     I could probably write pages and pages on my thoughts on this story but I would just like to add a few more things...

     I really liked Baldwin's mention of "Am I Blue" by Billie Holiday. After listening to the song's lyrics, I could see the connection between the lyric "Ain't these tears in my eyes telling you," and the performance and I could see Sonny playing the piano and what his eyes must have looked like as they met his brother's.

 

 Lyrics to "Am I Blue"

***

..and lastly, my favorite lines:

"He began pressing the beer can between his hands, I watched the metal begin to give. It glittered, as he played with it like a knife, and I was afraid he could cut himself, but I said nothing." (96)

     In my mind I was screaming at the narrator, say something, you've stayed quiet far too long, but then I thought even if you are silent, at least listen. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

-Runda

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "I Have A Dream" speech