In Richard Brautigan’s poem, “All Watched over by Machines of Loving
Grace,” Brautigan leaves the reader to think where Brautigan stands on
technology: is he for it, or against it? If you interpret the poem in a
particular manner, it portrays the belief that Brautigan is anti-technology.
For example, it seems that throughout the whole poem, starting with the title,
Brautigan writes with a tone of sarcasm. At the beginning of each stanza, there
is a parenthetical separation of a separate idea being inserted into the poem,
serving to interrupt the flow of the poem. These interruptions bring forward
the longings of our society to want everything done in an instant, and our
overreliance on technology to get everyday tasks done. Similarly, Brautigan
ends his poem describing a peaceful world without labor, while we are “all
watched over by machines of loving grace.” I feel that ending the implicates
that we may come to the point akin to the Matrix films, where we are slaves of
the machine, but not by hard labor, but through our minds.
While the poem mainly gives anti-technology impressions, one could
argue that the poem actually encourages cautious use of technology. Brautigan
lively describes a utopia “where mammals and computers live together in
mutually programming harmony.” The poem could be implying that if we are not
too ambitious and gluttonous with our use of technology, we can use it to
benefit of our society, rather than the world becoming one where the will of
humans submits to that of the machines. Overall, the anti-technology interpretation of the poem is the one that
I pick up on the most. It seems too easy to think that Brautigan would make
this poem advocating technology usage, mainly because of the utopia presented
in the poem. As demonstrated by our history, utopias are impossible for humans
to create, because of our own nature. The only way for a utopia to flourish is
the absence of human control within the utopia. This poem signals that a utopia
with humans and machines living in harmony would fall into the control of the
machines, which have no human emotions and act solely on logic. The machines
would most likely suck the humanity out of us or enact a tyranny of sort in
order to keep the peace. A world like that would truly be one to fear.
List of images:
"a dimpled spider, fat and white"
"a white heal-all"
"a white piece of rigid satin cloth"
"Assorted characters of death and blight" "the ingredients of a witches' broth" "A snow-drop spider"
"a flower like a froth"
"dead wings carried like a paper kite"
"What had that flower to do with being white"
"wayside blue and innocent heal-all"
"white moth"
Robert Frost’s poem, “Design” paints us a very vivid picture
of the aftermath of a natural cycle of life: predator vs. prey. Frost begins by
describing a “fat and white” dimpled spider that was proudly displaying its
catch of the day: a poor white moth, described as a “piece of rigid satin
cloth.” What is most interesting about the spider eating the moth is where the
action takes place. The poem illustrates a beautiful, “heal-all” flower as the location
of the feeding. The interaction between these two animals and the flower
provides us with a context that provides us with a possible interpretation of
the poem: Is there a deity watching over us? Frost underscores his possible beliefs with several paradoxes
dealing with the three objects in the poem. What Frost really highlights are
the light colors of the animals and the flowers being contrasted by the
darkness that comes with death. White and blue are happy, albeit plain, colors
that have no stand-alone association with death, yet Frost chooses these colors
to represent the spider, the moth and the flower. Frost also mentions “What had
that flower to do with being white, the wayside blue and innocent heal-all?” The
flower is a beautiful representation of life, yet it is central to the theme of
death in the poem because of the death of the moth taking place on it. This paradox
only furthers a possible assertion by Frost that there is no God, what with
death being necessary to further life, which in itself is a paradox. Frost ties up his poem with several questions as to why
events unfolded in the way they did in regard to the spider, moth, and flower.
Frost wonders why the spider would make the flower instrumental in its capture
of the moth. It could be that Frost was implicating that even in beauty lies
death, and that even what seems to be the safest of places is not safe at all.
This leads to the assertion of doubting a supreme being; why would anything so wonderfully
“designed” also be an instrument of death? Who knows…
Something that was recently brought to my attention is that I do not
read books more than once. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read any book
twice, unless I happened to have read a book for school beforehand. I was
talking with a friend about a sci-fi book we had both read a while back, and I
did not remember many of the events that took place in the book. While I did
remember the key points and crucial events of the story, I did not remember
some of the sub-plots that took place in the book. I asked him how he could
have possibly remembered so much of the book, since it had been a while since
we had read it. He told me that he had actually re-read the book recently in
preparation for the sequel, and that I should do that same. It was then I told
him that I don’t read re-read books. He asked me why, and I had never really
given much thought as to why I don’t re-read books. I told him that I just
never had any incentive to re-read a book, even if I enjoyed the book a lot,
and that if I wanted to remember what happened in a book, I would just read a
summary of it online. I guess the true reason of why I don’t read a book twice
is because I already know what’s going to happen, which is funny, because I
re-watch movies all the time. For me, it’s just not the same reading about
something you’ve already read versus watching a movie I’ve already seen
countless times. The magic of reading the book is lost. Maybe one day, though,
I’ll bring myself to re-read a book.
