Language and Cultural Context Comparing and contrasting two works that showcase similar themes but have been written in completely different literary eras by writers with very different personal experiences. Pieces Analyzed: “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Outsider” by James Berry
By Shreya Venkataraghavan
Language and its meaning are intrinsically tied up with the culture and context they were crafted in. In order to demonstrate and further explore this concept, one can compare how similar themes are expressed by different people living in completely different literary periods. To compare, I will be analyzing Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Alone’ and James Berry’s ‘Outsider’. Both are poems about loneliness and alienation and both have been written by distinguished poets of their respective time’s. ‘Alone’ was written in 1829 and was never intended for publication. 1829 is considered part of the ‘romantic’ era of literature. Romanticism was characterized by a focus on the individual, the poet’s own voice, emphasis on nature themes, discussion of the supernatural and much more. ‘Alone’ is a piece exemplary of the romantic era. Firstly, ‘Alone’ is told in the first person. This heightens the sense that this piece is the narrative of an ‘individual’. The circumstances described in the poem are reflective of what we know today of Poe’s own life and struggles. For instance, Poe states that he has had a “most stormy life” and that he could not awaken his “heart to joy at the same tone”. These statements coupled with the extremely gloomy and dark tone of the poem are possibly Poe’s ways of expressing the effect that his life’s tragedies have had on him. Poe had a tumultuous life full of loss and grief from his early childhood. Hid father abandoned his family when he was just a year old and his mother died soon after. He was then adopted by the Allan family. Poe became close to his adoptive mother Frances, but his relationship with his adoptive father John remained tense and difficult. They disagreed on most things and John considered Poe to be ungrateful and rebellious. Amongst many other hardships, Poe faced being kicked out of West Point academy, a failed engagement and the loss of both his adoptive mother and biological brother. All this turmoil could be the “stormy life” Poe speaks of in ‘Alone’ and is possibly what inspired the despondent tone of the piece. This piece sees Poe stress how “alone” he truly is. “All I loved, I alone”. This line implies that he feels alone and alienated even in what he chooses to love. Love is one of the basic human emotions and a focus on emotion is typical of romantic works. We further understand the extent of Poe’s feeling of isolation when he utilizes a supernatural metaphor in the last two lines of the poem. Poe claims that “(When the rest of Heaven was blue)”, there was a “demon” in his view. The use of the parentheses here establishes that Poe was completely removed from the rest of “Heaven”. It is pertinent to note that the “H” in “Heaven” is capitalized as this highlights the reverence held by most romantics for nature as something divinely spiritual. The “demon” is a supernatural figure that seems to be cornering Poe and preventing him from experiencing “Heaven”. The “demon” could refer to many things. It could be a metaphor for all the tragedies that he has been through, or it could be a reference to his adoptive father who he never had a good relationship with. Even the structure of “Alone” serves to demonstrate Poe’s sentiments. The poem utilizes enjambement and em dashes repeatedly. These devices serve to place breaks in the flow of the piece add an overall feel of disorientation to it. This could serve to highlight how all of the “stormy” events in Poe’s life made him feel lost and confused.
Analysis of “Alone” in the context of a romantic era piece allows us to fully see how Poe used tropes and stylistic devices of the time to convey his feelings of loneliness and isolation. The theme of loneliness is a common one in literature to this day. James Berry’s “Outsider” is an example of a postmodern piece that also explores the experience of loneliness and isolation. James Berry is an award-winning Jamaican poet who was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to poetry. “Outsider”, like “Alone”, is also narrated in the first person. “If you see me lost on busy streets, my dazzle is sun-stain of skin”. This is the first line of a piece that goes on to imply issues of race and discrimination. The “sun-stain of skin” seems to be referring to the fact that Berry is a person of color. Berry had experienced racial segregation during his time living in America. Once again, this is evidence that personal experience affects one’s writing as much as the literary era. In Poe’s case a lot of his work displayed his emotional struggles coping with so much grief and loss. In Berry’s case, much of his work explores racism and differences. Upon analyzing “Outsider”, it becomes clear that it is indeed a postmodern piece. It was published in 1979, which is part of the era of postmodern literature. Postmodern works feature fragmentation, black humor and complex symbolism amongst other devices to aid in conveying their message. Fragmentation is an integral part of postmodern poetry. A lot of postmodern poetry is free verse, experiments with structure and deviates from past rules of traditional punctuation use in poetry. Similarly, “Outsider” is in free verse. Fragmentation is abundant as enjambement is present almost all throughout and the reader is forced to jump from one complex image to another at almost every line. Such fragmentation could serve to reflect the fractures in society as well as the alienation/isolation that Berry felt as a result of discrimination. Berry also makes use of humor to discuss racial prejudice. He wants the reader to know that if you see him “lost in neglected woods”, he is “no thief eyeing trees to plunder their stability”. This line is a reference to how many people of color are stereotyped as being more likely to commit crimes. The idea of someone being suspected of conspiring to “plunder” trees seems rather silly, but it may push the reader to see the inherent silliness of making assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin. The “trees” here could be a symbol for many different things depending on how one interprets them in the context of the piece. Trees are often seen as valuable resources that give food, shelter and fuel. In multiple countries where tensions have risen between local communities and immigrants, immigrants are seen as outsiders coming to take away opportunities and options for sustenance leaving locals without any means to live. The “trees” that Berry does not want to be accused of plundering could be symbolic of this issue as he himself is an immigrant. The trees could also be symbolic of a community’s roots. An issue that has come up repeatedly in history when it comes to race is people not wanted to accept those of other races due to supremacist ideologies of race that push racial ‘purity’.
This is an example of a complex, non-obvious symbol that can be interpreted in multiple different ways and seems to have multiple layers. “Outsider” is filled with such symbols. Postmodern poetry has really cemented the concept of poems as pieces filled with complex underlying meanings that the reader is left to decode and interpret on their own, although this trend originated in modernist literature. Overall, analyzing both pieces not only in the cultural context of the literary era they were written in but also through the lens of the poet’s personal experiences shows us that the same theme can be expressed in entirely different ways. How the theme is expressed depends on both the writer’s response to his personal experience with the theme as well as common literary techniques, devices and tropes of the time period.