journal 14

Name: Erin

Journal #14 - E. A. Robinson Poems

Realism – The theory or practice in art and literature of fidelity to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization of the most typical views, details, and surroundings of the subject.

Read the following poems and write a detailed description for each of the title characters and explain how each is an example of the “real” instead of the “ideal.”

“Richard Cory“ (497)

Richard Cory was a wealthy man, seemingly blessed in everything the people who admired him thought most important. They respected him, perhaps too much, because to them he was an idealization rather than a living, breathing person. As a result, he was never truly befriended by any of them, but simply held at arms length and admired. Consequently, he became isolated and incurably lonely. He was thought to 'have it all,' yet the one thing he needed most, the friendship of his fellow man, was withheld from him; it never occurred to his admirers that he had the same needs as they did. Eventually, when the loneliness and alienation became unbearable, he took his life. “Richard Cory” describes how he is such a great man and there are others that are envious of his life, yet at the end of the poem he commits suicide without any specific reason given. This could very well be a statement about how some people live their lives, while they are truly tortured by some sort of trouble.

“Miniver Cheevy” (497)

“Miniver Cheevy” has a similar principle, but the character is not happy with his life and in the end only ends up drinking. Cheevy is a common kind of character, one who never does much, but
has excuses for his lack of achievement. It isn't really his fault. In
Cheevy's case, he was just born at the wrong time. There is nothing
exciting or challenging in his own time and place, nothing to stir him up
and cause him to exert his latent talents. Nhow if he could only have lived back in the romantic past, then he would
have amounted to something.

“Mr. Flood’s Party” (498)

Eben feels that he has lived too long. The harvest moon he sees underscores his situation. Harvested crops have a use at the end of their cycle, whereas Eben has outlived the late-autumn stage of his life and is of no use to anyone, not even to himself. The townspeople do not welcome him, probably because they think he is a mere drunk. He is so lonely that, tipsy with drink on the way to his empty hilltop house, he talks to himself as if he were two people celebrating together.

There is, however, more to Eben Flood than meets the townspeople's eye. Despite his name's close sound to “ebb and flow,” they do not think about what ups and downs he may have experienced in his life. Unlike the townsfolk, readers overhear Eben and learn that he believes everyone leads “uncertain lives” in a hard world where precious “things break” all too easily. When he says this, he is remembering the loss of his family and his many long-gone friends.