The author started the essay off with a quote.
"Now you have become my boredom and my failure,
Another way of suffering, a risk..."
- Philip Larkin
What do you all think about this?
My mind immediately thought of a disappointed parent speaking on their child. Maybe it's because I am still fairly young and living in my father's household, but marriage is not what appeared in my thoughts right after reading the above quote. I imagined a parent speaking on a disobedient or just a troubled child who has caused pain and heartache. It could also be because of my background. Seeing so many of the youth I grew up with in my neighborhood losing their way to the streets, eventually getting locked up or shot, or plain lucky to not have experienced the other options. It comes to a point where having a child in a certain environment is a risk. Exposing them to a certain world can very well make one feel like a failure of a parent. And when saying the same lines "stay out of trouble" "go to school" "don't be out there selling no dope" "keep away from those hoodlums" , it does eventually grow tiring. The name of the essay only supported my assumption. "A Matter of Life & Death" I think that can be a fair title for a narrative about growing up in the'hood'.
I'm curious to know what you all thought the essay was going to be about based soley off the title and the quote.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I first read the essay, I missed the quote. However, after hearing the quote in class from Professor Talbird, I initially thought of how relationships get dull over time. Some qualities of a spouse might turn from being dull to annoying to a maybe separation. I feel that the author of the essay kind of hinted at that too because he did say how at times, his wife would relax him but at other times, she would be aggravated by the author's iteration of waking his wife up at night over and over again.
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