The selected lines from the poem, “Why a man cannot have wings”, revolves around the notion of society’s reaction to the attainment of what would have been previously considered an anomaly: wings for flight. The poet has crafted his poetical stand with cynical lenses, conveying the devastating prospects that would surface if men were indeed able to fly. An example to highlight this would be how the poet states , “Because there will be new categories of handicaps”. The significance of this line is immensely profound in the sense that it serves as an insight to the gratitude deficient souls of individuals. The poet’s proposition that, with the gaining of a new anatomy comes along the divisional classification of humans, shapes the inference that human beings are drawn to the idea of brooding on differences and can never accept the individual for the who they stand to be. It is the poet’s belief that a species so abhorred to acceptance of the other, would only worsen this trait with the gaining of new ability. The poet also goes on to say, that men cannot have wings, “because in concentration camps people will break wings/ And use feather for quills to write sonnets”. We see the devastating prospect of men with wings taking the form of exploitation. The breaking of wings, imply that it is a is a societal belief that with the more an individual has to offer, the more there is to be taken away from that individual and that more magnanimous are the prospects of effectively crippling the individual. The idea of using the feathers from the wings of the people to create quills, characterize human beings with a pragmatic purpose, from which we infer the perception that individuals are merely tools with practical functions, that they are merely the means to an end. The injection of the word “sonnet”, is a notable for the poet has cleverly chosen the practical usage of feathers to be crafting a sonnet, which is a construction that serves to explore contrasting ideas. This minute address to the idea of contrast is prominent for it serves to alleviate the juxtaposition that is extensively entrenched in the poem. This notion of opposing ideas can be drawn from the context of the nature of hope and the realization of hope that governs the poem. This is whereby the metaphorically association with wings : the ideas of freedom, liberation and emancipation, is not evident in this poem’s society, where people have wings. The very realization of what once a fantasy is not at all fantastical but instead, debasing to a very large extent. In making a point that society transgresses from moral expectations with its appalling reaction to the attainment of the impossible, the poet stands to make a poignant social critique, that the world we live in is a degenerate.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 06:00:38 +0000
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