Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist is the predictable story of a boy who tries to survive being a poor orphan in the Victorian age; I can declare that is a predictable story because of the feasible plot development. But being fair with the story and the author, this is a masterpiece; is the keystone for all the similar stories of poor children surviving and achieving their goals.

After watching this movie just came to my mind the image of my father; He started to work when he was fourteen and since then he had never stopped to work, a boy from the north of Chile who recollected grapes for the pisco industry who is nowadays the father of a university student. The only difference from Twist’s times is that nowadays the social status is more dynamic, but at the same time, more volatile.

This is another example of how human life was deplorable because of his new behavior against industrialization. Nowadays, at the same level as in the Victorian age.

The Signalman

After reading Charles Dickens’s Signalman I can make a comparison between the Victorian age and the Greek old times; meanwhile during the Victorian age people lived industrialization as a new way of life, the ancient Greece people’s life were ruled by their gods will. Both ideas, Industrialization and gods will has several thinks in common:

First of all, both were unstoppable forces that cannot be challenged by anyone. In the signal man we can see who the train is the representation of modernity, a giant titan of the old Greece or more closely connected with the idea of the Sanskrit idea of a Juggernaut. Secondly, the signalman had a vision of a ghost, figure that contrast with the ideas of modernity implied in the Victorian age, but are very connected with a world of fantasy and magic, as the Greek divinities.

To cut a long story short, The Signalman, is just a spectator of the dynamic world that surrounded him, a lonely man that is visited by a magic entity. Even in modern times when the science and logic are the trend, we can find signals, maybe the same ones that the old Greek thinkers saw in those times.

It's Alive!

Reading Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein after discovering her biography gives us a whole new perspective of her masterpiece; following that can realize the decadent world that inspired for her masterpiece. First of all, her background from an aristocrat and well educated family that crumbles down for the selfishness.

Her infamous existence and well educated background were the source for the story of a man who wanted to play god and a being that was not human, but had feelings and de innocence of one. Two outcasts, two misfits. A obvious remembrance of her life. The commemoration of her sadness as a science fiction novel, an old Greek tragedy where the powers of the goodness and the magic powers is replaced by science.

I personally believe that Mary Shelly wanted Junior’s innocence, the capacity of reborn and observe the world with brand new eyes, those eyes who were witness of her bizarre way of life

Daffodils, by Wordsworth

Daffodils, by Wordsworth is the presentation of the beauty of nature, the simplest and prettiest creation of god is being contemplated by him, it is important to realize that a poet just writes about what he feels and what is important for him, in this case, a bunch of flowers are the trigger for a whole new world perspective.

The stanza "A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company" is because this beauty is so overwhelming that he doesn’t feel alone, he is in company of the nature, as something natural and supernatural at the same time, because the idea that he presents of the flowers, the clouds and the stars. We must remember that this is a keystone in romanticism.
I personally believe that presents the idea of life, as complex as human existence, but beauty and simple as a bunch of Daffodils.

John Keats’ “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be”

“Here lies one whose name was writ in water”

In John Keats’ poem “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be” are presented all the fears that he had about dead and all the things that are implied in the process of passing out to the alter life.
I personally believe that he, as an artist his biggest fear was to be forgotten, because that’s why an artist presents his creations, because hi wants to live forever, not as an immortal being, but at least, in his personal work.

This is a fear that also I have, but the difference here is that I am studying a career where I have the opportunity to pass my knowledge and myself to other by education instead a poem or a song. And there is nothing wrong in that, is a human need to trespass ourselves to time and beat dead.

Coleridge´s Kubla Khan

Coleridge´s Kubla Khan is an epic and fantastic poem that presents us a fantasy world is conceived from a real land, Mongolia, but with the perception of someone who is immersed in the pleasures of opium.

For some of us, this could be something negative; the use of drugs in order to accomplish or get something from them, in this case inspiration. But for other people, this kind of inspiration for others is divine. As the word of an angel that dictates God´s will.

This divine epiphany contrast with one of the most important keystones of the romanticism: the aim to the nature and the human’s inner world. Maybe is poem is the transition between the main topics of poetry: Goddess and nature.

"The Little Black boy"

The keystone in the poem "The Little Black boy" is the dichotomy between the human and the divine, which is presented for the mother of the boy. In this poem, the mother is giving a new meaning to all the creation, giving it a divine origin, to the flowers, the beasts, the sunlight, the men and so on. She is no just presenting a divine perception of the world, she is giving a Christian perception of it, because she present the idea of lamb, that is closely connected to the jew-christian tradition.

Maybe, she is giving to his son some of her hope, the same hope that helped her to survive as a black woman in a tough society. She knows that her son will need in something to believe, because he will be a underdog because of the culture of his country.

When I saw Picasso’s “mother and child” the first thing that I thought was the moment of epiphany of the boy, when all the creation makes sense when you see it through faith eyes, just like his mother.