1)The song, “Storm”, by Lifehouse represents many of the themes demonstrated in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. The singer describes himself struggling to stay alive in an ocean, and it seems as if he would give up except for one person that keeps him pushing forward. This relates to Pi both because it takes place in an ocean (obvious connection) and additionally, the lyrics make it difficult to decipher if the singer is talking about God or a friend. I believe that this song can be interpreted as Pi thinking about his relationship with Richard Parker. In Life of Pi, Pi is often confronted with the easier choice of just giving up, but he keeps struggling because of his faith and because of the other life he feels responsible for, the life of Richard Parker. Pi often reflects back during the course of the book and reiterates his belief that the tiger was his savior. That can be interpreted in “Storm” also. I get the distinct impression that the subject of the singer’s thoughts the motivation that keeps him going. Could this force be like Richard Parker? Defying normal boundaries by being both an animal and part of Pi’s spirituality- both godlike and human? The following lyrics examine another theme present in the song:
“I know you didn't bring me out here to drown
So why am I ten feet under and upside down
Barely surviving has become my purpose”
These lyrics show that Richard Parker is unintentionally good and evil. The animal doesn’t consciously wish harm upon Pi, but just his presence is an additional perilous threat to Pi’s safety. The lyric about ‘barely surviving’ is reminiscent of the theme of polarities, or a tension of opposites; something that Pi reflects on as an everyday occurrence in the battle of a survivor. He lists examples such as the fine line between eating and starving, hot and cold, day and night, etc. This theme is present in more books and plays we read this year, such as Romeo and Juliet, Oedipus, Socialization of Boys (The fine line between being sensitive and a derogatory term that guys use to describe other guys), and Siddhartha (attachment/detachment, enlightened/ not enlightened). Romeo and Juliet is full of opposites for example using light and darkness to determine the mood of any one scene; it also is present in Oedipus when blindness versus sight, and the implications those conditions hold, is considered.
Finally, the mood of the song is conflicted, as if the singer cannot quite decide how he feels about his guide. The song starts with only the singer’s voice, implying that he feels alone and possibly scared and apprehensive. That is also felt by Pi after Richard Parker leaves him but, even when they were on the boat, Pi had moments where he questioned the meaning of his life and felt devastatingly alone. The quiet powerfulness of the instruments supporting the singer’s voice represents how Pi felt about the tiger; they are both majestic and command attention, and they don’t need to be overemphasized because they serve as a complement to everything else around them.
2)I picked the song “Someone to Fall Back On” by Jason Robert Brown to emphasize the theme of friendship in Gilgamesh. The song is about a man who feels that he is less of a person than the woman he loves, and that he is nothing special. That reminded me of Gilgamesh’s relationship with Enkidu, the beast who is civilized into a man. There is a tone of servility in the song that matches Enkidu’s respect and love for Gilgamesh, because although they are equal, Enkidu will never achieve the greatness that Gilgamesh has. The song talks about ‘always being there’ for the other person, which is certainly a sentiment that the two men share, as they adventure together to find a way to achieve immortality.
“You don’t believe me
But the things I have
Are the things you need.”
The two great and powerful men keep each other in check, making sure that neither gets too destructive or controlling. Enkidu acts as a calming force on Gilgamesh, whose restless nature and sense of self-entitlement often result in catastrophes. And in return, Gilgamesh takes some of Enkidu’s attention away from himself and forces his energy into friendship, which ultimately improves both of them. The singer implies that the person he loves challenges him to become a better person and improve himself. Additionally, they protect each other and watch each other’s back, as these lyrics demonstrate:
“And I’ll be that:
I’ll take your side.
If I’m the only one,
I’m used to that.
I’ve been alone,
I’d rather be
The half of us,
The least of you,
The best of me.”
When Ishtar is rejected and sends a bull down from heaven, Enkidu immediately takes Gilgamesh’s side and battles next to him without question. They battled as one person and succeeded in slaying the heavenly bull, and Gilgamesh mentions that they are ‘hailed as one’. This shows that their friendship goes beyond any superficial friendship, and some readers believe that they were in love, which would certainly make this song more relevant because it involves two people loving each other. No matter how you interpret the intensity of the relationship, this song represents the friendship that motivates them and inspires them to look beyond themselves and care for another person.
3)I picked “Lay my Love” by Brian Eno to represent Siddhartha’s quest for spiritual enlightenment and his need to be his own teacher. I first explored the idea of Siddhartha’s need to become enlightened in his own way, without instruction or a curriculum. These lyrics represent his individual journey towards spirituality:
“I need no fact or validation
I span relentless variation
I scramble in the dust of a failing nation
I was concealed
Now I am stirring”
This verse talks about making your own decisions and finding out what works for you- in Siddhartha’s case, other methods of enlightenment just didn’t work for him. He discovered what it meant to be one with the universe on his own, and once he figured it out, he ‘needed no fact or validation’. He knew he was on the right path, and didn’t need someone standing behind him telling him how to achieve his goal. The ‘relentless variation’ lyric invoked images of Siddhartha trying the many other ways people had became enlightened before finding out what worked for him. He wanted to succeed so badly that he gave up material goods, punished his body, and finally decided to rely on his gut instinct and try an indirect approach to his goal. On his journey, he can give up and switch methods rapidly, and his unrelenting search of Nirvana was ended when he managed to just sit back and observe the ‘big picture’ of the world. His trial-and-error method discussed above is described by these lyrics:
“I am the sea of permutation
I live beyond interpretation
I scramble all the names and the
combinations
I penetrate the walls of explanation”
Basically, he switches things up and tries to look at ideas in a new way each time, ‘scrambling’ them. He’s looking for something beyond the basic classroom lessons, turning respected teachers’ thoughts and values on their heads to see if there’s something beyond the obvious. Because of his strength and perseverance, he ultimately succeeds.
4)“Ironic” by Alanis Morissette explores the forces of irony, or as I interpret it, fate. She sings about different circumstances that just had to go wrong, and the song has a bittersweet tone throughout.
“Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face”
I connected this to Romeo and Juliet, which is just instance after instance of ironic events; to elaborate- Romeo and Juliet fell in love at the party, but out of every person Romeo could have been, he was the son of the Capulet’s sworn enemies. It’s ironic because there were literally only a handful of people that would have been an issue for Juliet to fall in love with, and he was one of them. The whole play is a series of ‘almosts’ and every event is looked at apprehensively by the audience. It seems so obvious from an outsider’s view- ‘if only she hadn’t…’’if only he had waited…’ etc. The scene where Romeo committed suicide was the most blatant example of how far fate would go to keep the lovers apart. It’s a tense moment; all of the audience is silently willing Juliet to wake up before Romeo takes the fatal drink. But that’s not even irony yet, that’s just tragedy setting the scene.
“It's a death row pardon two minutes too late”
The real ironic statement Shakespeare makes is that Juliet wakes up literally moments later. That’s too cruel to both of them. They were so close to surviving you almost let yourself believe that maybe she would wake up in time. In this way, Shakespeare’s irony is so powerful that it tricks both the audience and the unlucky characters in his story.
5)The “Hammond Song” by the Roches demonstrates both the idea of youthful love (as seen in Romeo and Juliet) as well as distorted reality. The song tells the story of people (I’m just going to say they’re friends because it’s unclear) watching their other friend fall in love with a guy and plan to run off with him. She’s convinced it’s true love, the others are not so sure. Her perception of reality twists to accommodate her dreams of love. Like Romeo and Juliet, this song deals with teenagers making rash decisions based on their infatuations without knowing if any substance lies beneath. In this song both distorted reality and youthful love are one and the same, however the theme of distorted reality comes up in other books we read such as Gilgamesh (his false sense of invincibility) and Ishmael. The following lyrics show how this girl’s friends fear her visions of love have blinded her:
“If you go down to Hammond
You’ll never come back
In my opinion you’re
On the wrong track”
“Throwing yourself away
Not even trying”
By ‘throwing yourself away’, they mean that she isn’t pausing to consider her actions and they suggest that by waiting perhaps a better alternative could be found. The interesting thing about this verse is that it could be interpreted one of two ways. The friends could be simply telling her it might work out better if the relationship had time to mature at home, or it could demonstrate another theme in Romeo and Juliet- the theme of forbidden love. Suddenly these words have a new connotation. Throwing yourself away could have a more serious meaning than just making a mistake one can recover from. Consider the scene where Capulet tells Juliet that unless she marries Paris she will be thrown out on the street. The whole passage becomes more permanent and threatening. Just by switching your viewpoint you see the theme of youthful love with concerned, logical friends change to forbidden love where no matter how real it is you just aren’t allowed to enjoy it.
“If you go with that fella
Forget about us”
The ‘forbidden love’ theme also brings up an idea of how love isolates you against society. The tone of this song suggests that the lover is separating herself from her friends, and correspondingly her friends, because they disagree with her choices, are continuing to isolate her. Her boyfriend is basically turning her against society because she’s going to do something unconventional (run away). Juliet made these same decisions when she fell in love with Romeo. She isolated herself from anything that would get in the way of their love- her closest companion (The Nurse) and her family. This song shows love as a powerful, slightly saddening thing, because even when you think you’re in love (or if you are), it still separates you from other people as you move into a duo-based existence.
6)“The Leader of the Pack” by The Shangri-Las was picked because of its representation of stereotypes and the socialization of boys, as well as Gilgamesh’s false sense of invincibility. Stereotypes are woven throughout this story of the ‘bad boy’ that this wealthy girl (Betty) is dating. He rides a motorcycle to enhance his bad-boy image and seem tough around his friends, and additionally, her parents obviously believe that where you’re from defines who you are, and that a guy from “the other side of town” couldn’t be a decent guy. Although she doesn’t necessarily go into detail about his character, you can tell that he relies on image to impress. In our exploration of the tough guy image boys feel they have to put on, we said that hiding emotions, acting tough, and even resorting to violence were images guys found ‘manly’ or ‘powerful’. When he is described as ‘leader of the pack’, I get the distinct image he encompassed all of those traits.
“My folks were always putting him down (down, down)
They said he came from the wrong side of town
(whatcha mean when ya say that he came from the wrong side of town?)
They told me he was bad
But I knew he was sad”
However, Betty saw past the stereotypes and viewed him as a human being with the same issues and emotions everyone else feels. By not putting him on a tough guy pedestal, she saw something in him that no one else bothered to look for, because he couldn’t show it to anyone else. This song subtly shows the positive impact of letting ‘real men’ not have to pretend they don’t get hurt just like everybody else.
Another theme I wanted to explore was Gilgamesh’s false sense of invincibility and his denial of death. Throughout his story, he believes that he is too much like the gods to suffer like humans do, but in the end he is forced to acknowledge the eventual death he will experience. Every time I thought about his denial, I related it to when teenagers believe they are above the thousands of car accidents that occur every year, and then they speed and drag race, etc. and get killed. When Betty’s boyfriend sped off into the night, he probably just went as fast as he could to burn off some anger and sadness he was experiencing, and didn’t give much thought to the consequences. This rashness ended up with him crashing his motorcycle and dying. In the end, no one is exempt from the laws of nature, and we still die, whether we are famous or unknown. That is something both Gilgamesh and irrational teenagers needed to come to terms with.
7)I picked the song “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be” by Carly Simon to represent the theme of tradition in Our Town (as well as the basic need for companionship), and even Ishmael. It deals with what people should do and how they are ‘supposed’ to live their lives, and the singer is a girl who is unsure that marriage will make anything better. This is similar to Emily and George’s second thoughts before walking down the aisle. The doubt in the subject’s thoughts is represented by these following lyrics:
“But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be
You want to marry me, we'll marry”
It’s clear that she’s only consenting because that’s the way things have always been done, and she doesn’t want to be the first to refuse a conventional life. It’s not that she doesn’t love him; she does, it’s just that she has seen other couples and doesn’t see how marriage makes anything better. In fact, more often than not she sees that married couples are unhappier with their lives and their spouses than they were before marriage. She’s worried that they’ll lose the exciting aspect of their relationship, and her primary concern is that she’ll lose the ability to just be herself and not part of a couple. Emily and George felt the same way in Our Town.
“The couples cling and claw
And drown in love's debris
You say we'll soar like two birds through the clouds
But soon you'll cage me on your shelf
I'll never learn to be just me first
By myself”
They worried that they were growing up too fast and realized that maybe they weren’t ready to lose the ‘individual’ part of themselves. However, tradition appealed, and they went through with it. The same kind of tradition calls in Ishmael when Ishmael talks about how tradition blinds you and prevents new thinking simply because it’s outside of your culturally structured world. “Mother Culture” is the specific tradition that Ishmael explores that binds all other human traditions together. A simple fear of being alone in your thinking compels most people to go through the motions of life, no matter what they think of that specific event. Even though the singer is confused throughout the song about whether or not she should marry, in the end she gives in just like everyone else (because she loves him, so ‘why not?’).
End of Year Reflection Song:
8)I picked the song “Shades of Gray” by the Monkees for a few reasons. First, my parents always played oldies music when I was young, and I grew up to the Beatles and the Monkees and Sly and the Family Stone resounding throughout the house. It seemed fitting to me that I end my freshman year (and the end of easier childhood) with a band I matured to. Additionally, while I was exploring the theme of opposites mentioned in so many of the books we read this year, I realized how many of those polarities I experience on a day to day basis. Don’t worry, I wasn’t referring to any of the ones regarding life or death, but more of the ones based off of morality and being a good person. There’s such a fine line regarding reputation and the way people perceive you in high school, and sometimes it’s tough to make sure that your decisions reflect who you really are. I’ve seen some of my friends go through issues regarding who they are and how they are looked at, and I had to deal with some self-discovery of my own this year. I really came out of my shell in high school and it was hard to tell when I pushed something too far or didn’t make a point strongly enough. It was hard to find that happy medium because first I had to know where my limits were, but finding them can be tricky. Having everything in ‘shades of gray’ only makes it harder to define yourself because you don’t know where to start! I feel like knowing who you are and how you stand helps people navigate through life and the tough decisions it sends your way.
“I remember when the answers seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear.”
I remember when I was a kid and I was always so sure of myself. I specifically remember dance recitals when I was four and no one had any idea what the teacher had spent the last 3 months attempting to choreograph, so we all just did our own thing. Since we didn’t doubt our abilities or judge how clueless and ridiculous we looked, everyone applauded and remarked on how ‘adorable’ or ‘talented’ we all were. Now, that line is blurred a little. In theory, people respect individuality and ‘just doing your own thing’, but people are self conscious and never really trust in their abilities completely. There’s always some doubt or judgment or fear of failing that holds you back.
“It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate,
The foolish from the wise.”
Now it’s all just navigating blindly and hoping you’ll make the right choice and not be judged too harshly. I think I’ve matured this year because of my attempts to get beyond the little critic in all of us. By learning about myself and what I stand for, I’m making my way towards being the person I want to be.
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