Moving away from tradition in 'Broken Images’ and Devkota’s The Lunatic

Moving away from tradition: in 'Broken Images’ and Devkota’s The Lunatic

This paper attempts to explore the common theme shared by two poems: ‘In Broken Images’ by Robert Graves and ‘The Lunatic’ by Lakhsmi Prasad Devkota. Both of the poems represent the universal conflict of human race: being traditional and moving away from the traditions to think of new perspectives. We can find the idea of ‘traditional versus radical thinking in every society. Moreover, always the established thought and values become privilege. It is very difficult to introduce new thinking in old society. Both poets’ main concern is to show the established values of society may not always beneficial. Thus, they are encouraging the readers not to accept those values without questioning. They also try to make clear about the difficulties one faces for his/her new way of thinking.

            ‘In Broken Images’ written by an English poet Robert Graves and ‘The Lunatic’ written by a Nepali poet, both represent the contrasting nature of thinking and try to establish the difference between traditional thinking and radical thinking. Not only thematically but also structurally these poems are divided into traditional and radical thinking. The poems contain two voices: one is the voice of ‘I’ and another is the voice of ‘He’, ‘You’ and ‘friend’. The voice of ‘I’ in both poems represents radical thinking and the voice of ‘He’ in ‘In Broken Images’ and ‘You’ and ‘friend’ in ‘The Lunatic’ represents the traditional or stereotypical thought of society. Comparatively, Graves presents two voices more explicitly than Devkota. Although the radical voice is dominated in ‘The Lunatic’, the rooted voice of traditional society is not more explicit than in Graves’ poem. Devkota ends every stanza by addressing the friend, “Surely my friend, am I insane/ Such is my plight”. In these lines, there are two subjects: one is ‘friend’ and another is ‘I’. Thus, structurally this refrain has shown the binary thinking of society. Likewise, ‘In Broken Images’ contains seven couplets. Each of the first line hold the idea of ‘He’ and second line hold the idea of ‘I’. In other words, all the couplets show the binary thinking of ‘He’ and ‘I’. Thus, both of the poems structurally represent the two part of society: traditional and radical.

                        The poets portray the picture of two worlds: traditional/old and modern/new in terms of thinking process. Although their major concern is how people think, both poems represent the world with demarcation of traditional and new. In comparison to ‘The Lunatic’, ‘In Broken Images’ lines are explicit to show the binary conflict between traditional thinker and radical thinker. In this poem, the first line of each couplet is the perspective of traditional thinker and the second line of each stanza presents the voice of radical thinker.

Traditional thinker                                                                     Radical thinker

He is quick, thinking in clear images                          I am slow, thinking in broken images

            He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images            I become sharp, mistrusting my                                                                                                                           broken images

            …                                                                                …

He in a new confusion of his understanding              I in a new understanding of my confusion (1-14)

Although only third stanza shows explicitly the two binary worlds, the whole poem is about poet’s dissatisfaction towards the society’s rigid intellectuality in ‘The Lunatic’. Like Grave, Devkota also shows the two voices of traditional thinker and radical thinker which is explicit in stanza no. three. In this stanza, ‘I’ represents radical thinker and ‘You’ represents traditional thinker.

         Traditional thinker                                                                  Radical thinker

Your formulas are ever running correct                     But in my calculation one minus one is always one

         You work with your senses five                                 With the sixth I operate

         Brains you have, my friend                                        But the heart is mine

To you a rose is but a rose                                          It embodies Helen and Padmini for me

         You are strong prose                                                   But I am liquid poetry (27-36)

Through these lines, we can say that both poems are encircling around the main idea that is traditional values and new achievements are always in conflict.

            In both poems the poets have used irony as a poetic tool to give emphasis on the modern thinking over traditional. Through irony, the poet emphasizes the ideas by hiding it from readers. According to M. H. Abraham, “In most of the modern critical uses of the term “irony” there remains the root sense of dissembling or hiding what is actually the case; not, however; in order to deceive, but to achieve special rhetorical or artistic effects” (135). Therefore, irony is such a powerful device to show the importance of something or someone without foregrounding. In other words, the purpose of poets to use irony is not to create illusion among readers, but to help the readers to escape from the confusing state of mind.

            Devkota’s speaker repeatedly claims himself as insane person by saying “Surely, my friend, am I insane”. However, in reality he wants to make clear about the worse sides of society by showing himself a stupid person. He says that “Look at the strumpet-tongued dance of shameless leadership! / At the breaking of the backbones of the people’s rights!” (273).These lines give the reason of why he has become insane. His insanity is reaction against the society’s negative treatment to the helpless people. Actually he is not insane but the society gives him a tag of insane because he has pointed to the society. Although he claims that he is insane and the society in intelligent, the poet’s main purpose is to show the stubborn thinking of society is harmful for the people’s prosperity.

            Likewise, ‘In broken Images’ starts with the couplet which says, “He is quick, thinking in clear images; / I am slow, thinking in broken images” (1-2). These lines explicitly show that ‘He’ is clever and ‘I’ is dull. However, the purpose of the poet is just opposite: to show the hidden reality of society which is not very intellectual which we think. The purpose of the poet becomes apparent in the last couplet which says that “He in a new confusion of his understanding / I in a new understanding of my confusion”. Because of the quickness, ‘He’ entrapped in the confusion whereas the ‘I’ gets new understanding because of his slow and diverse investigation on something. Like Devkota, Graves has also used irony to question the existing values of traditions. According to Michael Joseph, “one’s immediate impression of ‘total abstraction’ is challenged by a sense of irony- or a cow-jumped- over- the –moon logic- that inheres in ‘In Broken Images’ (670). It becomes clear from Joseph’s line that irony is a greatest tool, which injures someone without making any scars on skin. For this reason, both poets have become successful to attack on the traditional thinking of society.

            These poems also imprint the bitter picture of society in which education or the cognitive abilities of human beings are always restricted by the principles of the society and the system that is rooted in stereotypical values. Through this poem, Devekota is challenging the criteria of intellectuality in traditional society.  According to Shreedher Lohani and Moti Nissani, “Wearing the persona or mask of a lunatic, the poet gives a memorable expression of … a clinically accurate indictment of the hollowness of the so-called intellectual aspirants and leaders of time, and maybe of any time” (269). ‘In Broken Images’ the speaker is marked as ‘slow’ because he is interested in fragmented knowledge and he is rejecting the universal and absolute values of society. Society always prefers to the idea, which are explicit and clear. Thus for society thinking about clear images is intellectual work. For the speakers of both poems to think beyond the existing values is the way to get newness in one’s life. Just opposite, for ‘He’ and ‘You’, a representative character of tradition, to think within the framework is rational. However, in reality ‘He’ is contrived himself within a boundary. According to Natalia Stachon,

One of the pair is able to think quickly and clearly, while the other thinks slowly and ‘in broken images’. The former’s apparent advantages become a disadvantage to him because he grows complacent and unable to think outside the box anymore, while the latter individual, unsure and under confident of his mental faculties, works harder on them and is thus able to become a better thinker.

 Stachon’s view also helps to make clear about the demarcation of two world in the ‘In Broken Images’. Both of the poets present the two juxtaposing views in order to show the conflict in society that can find in every part of the world. It is one of the reasons, which has brought two poets in one point who are from different geographical and cultural part of the world.

Grave and Devkota present the society as it always prefer to walk in a plain way. The persons who are rooted in tradition they do not bother themselves to construct new way. In the poets’ view, the society is like a train, which only runs on the road of the traditional values and conventions. But the poets want to be excavator and bulldozer. At very first they seem to destruct the structure but in reality, they construct the new road after destruction of old structure. Likewise, both poets have created the poetic persona who strikes everything the old structure presents, making themselves odd and mad in front of society. The following lines from the poems show the society’s preference towards the easy and plain way.

                     He is quick, thinking in clear images;

                     I am slow, thinking in broken images. [(1-2) Graves]

                     You decant when I go muddy.          

                     When I am muddled, you are clear. [(38-39) Devkota]

         In Graves’ view, the society always think of clear images which do not bothers the thinkers mind and seen as ‘quick’ and fast. It means it always wants to form the lines of scholars who do not want to take any risk. Devkota has also similar kind of thought. In his view the conventional thinker always choose to be decanting, but the poet wants such a person who take risk to jump into muddy place to find new truth.

         ‘In Broken Images’, Graves uses the words like ‘questioning’, mistrusting’ repeatedly. The significance of using such words is to encourage the readers to question whatever things come before them. In other words, he is teaching to doubt on everything because he knows that by doubting on thing and ideas, one can get away from the state of confusion. In comparison Devkota is very radical to express his views which are opposite than social norms. In some lines, he shows his anger by saying;

                     When man regards a man as no man

Then gnash my teeth and grind my jaws, set with two and thirty teeth. (138-239)

                     I look at this inhuman human world

                     Like a tongue of fire (145-146)

         According to him, the world is ‘inhuman human world’. It means the world full of human being but no one can feel the presence of human with humanity. He also says that this world has become empty because of lack of mutual relations. He cannot endure such inhuman society and he comes out of rage in his body. This is very radical view of speaker, which directly attacks the society’s rules and regulations.

         In conclusion, though both poets are very radical and against the traditional rules and regulations of society, they are advocating for the betterment of society and people. Both of them are against the mainstream thought of society for the positive changes. In both poems, there is poetic persona whose revolt leads towards the newness and freedom from the constricting view of society.

                        Work Cited        

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7^th ed. Boston: Thomson Keinle, 2005. Print.

Devkota, Laxmi Prasad. “The Lunatic.” Flax-Golden Tales: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Learning English. Ed. Moti Nissani a   nd Shreedher Lohani. Kathmandu: Ekta Books, 2011. 269-274. Print.

Graves, Robert. “In Broken Images.” The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. London: W.W. Norton and company, 2005. 35-36. Print.

Joshep, Michael. “Poetic Nonsense: Robert Graves, The White Goddess and children’s Poety.” Rutgers: The state university of New Jersey 45(2013): 650-684. Web. <http: //www.robertgraves.org/issue/45/2219>

Nissani, Moti and Lohani, Shreedher. Flax-Golden Tales: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Learning English. Ed. Moti Nissani a                 nd Shreedher Lohani. Kathmandu: Ekta Books, 2011.  Print.

  Stachon, Natilia. “In Broken Images: Thoughts on my artistic practice.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 58.2 (2004): 47-62. Web. <http:// www.jstor.org/stable/1577653>.

Note: This article was submitted to the Central Department of English. As a class assignment on subject of Modern and Postmodern Poetry on 24, October 2017.