3. Think about hamartia: find one poem that displays a tragic flaw in human nature (either human nature in general or in one human, as expressed in the poem.) Write about whether or not the poem’s message is enhanced for you, as a reader, as you contemplate hamartia as it relates to the text
I chose the poem ‘In the Secular Night.’ This poem displays a tragic flaw in the speaker. The title and the first stanza of the poem introduce the reason for the speaker’s fall. The line, ‘alone in your house. It’s two-thirty, everyone has deserted you,’ shows that the speaker is lonely. Rejecting the sacred, and seeking fulfillment from the world, leads to dissatisfaction, loneliness and emptiness. This flaw and downfall does not create redemption, but rather, puts it clear that the downfall stays the same. The last line ‘someone’s been run over. The century grinds on,’ shows that this is how the world, or the speaker’s life will be. Although forty years have passed since she first was lonely and deserted in her house, no change in her state of loneliness or the sacred has occurred. It seems that the speaker will have to live or ‘grind’ on in the secular night, or world.
Harmatia enhances the poem’s message for me because I can easily pick out or realize the poet’s message. I guess by being able to relate to the speaker makes it easier. As I read this poem, I feel a lot of sympathy for this speaker. Although it is a poem, if I was one of these people who were so lonely for more than 40 years, how different I would be. Eating meals alone, having complete silence surround me and then hearing sirens, only to find out an accident. For some reason the line, ‘you’d be surprised if you got an answer,’ really stood out and touched me. Maybe it’s just my nature of needing answers, but imagining how it feels to think that nothing is answering my words except my own words, is really painful. So, this tragic flaw of the speaker helps me see her flaw and fall easily and realize how ultimately, we must accept the sacred in order to feel most complete.
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Yes, I really enjoyed "In the Secular Night" as well. In a way, the presence of God can either help us to be content whatever situation we're put in, or make us lonelier when we feel like we're not getting answers and satisfactions that we are expecting. It is easier to feel "abandoned" and "deserted" when we believe in the existence of God. If we had no one to depend on and ask questions to in the first place, we wouldn't be feeling as much disappointment than if we were ...independent (I guess) from the beginning. It's such a sad reality that everyone feels some kind of loneliness, one way or the other, and it's a solitary journey that one must take and society just "grinds on". It just feels like it doesn't matter what one's feeling or going through. The world goes on.
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