On “Reflections of Exile” by Edward Said
Said begins his reflection on exile with a dramatic opening, using statements and words such as “terrible experience,” “unhealable,” he undermines the new cultural view of exile. Said enforces his opinion that exile has become a figment of what it truly is with his introduction. He begins his analysis, questioning why exile has become a “motif of modern culture”. Opening with these statements, and questioning the present culture’s views on exile, he directly speaks to this audience, i.e Brodsky.
Comparing a “poet in exile” to that of his poetry, he appeals to reasoning. His personal experiences with friends, exiled writers, like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, allows for an appeal to pathos.
By nationalism, and later questioning how exiles are separate from nationalism, his reasoning that exile and nationalism cannot be discussed without one another is a strong point. It lends a hand to his argument, how the image of a heroic exile does not work, that it is “virtually unbearable, and virtually impossible in today’s world” to “reassemble an exile’s broken history into a new whole.” This affirms his notion that exile literature, and it’s use of exile as symbolic and heroic, do nothing for the state of exile, or for the exiles themselves. Again, he mentions a friend, “Noubar...a solitary Armenian,” proving his knowledge of the subject, and further inducing the audience to believe what he is saying. He also appeals to his own pathos through his analysis: “the pathos of exile is in the loss of contact with the solidity and the satisfaction of earth: homecoming is out of the question.”
On the other hand, by undermining an exiles attempt to connect to his past, and possibly a future where an exile can belong again, goes against, I think, our own human sentiments, and specifically an audiences’. Since I am the audience right now, I cannot help but to disagree with many of his statements on our cultural views of exile, or how they are unsuccessful attempts at belonging. Therefore my own opinions on exile, and his opposing one, does not appeal to Pathos, and takes away from his ethos and logos.
On “Grief and Reason” by Joseph Brodsky
Considering I read this piece right after “Reflection of Exile,” I was already distracted with my sentiments on exile. I began reading it with a bit of frustration from before, but once I started, I realized Brodsky’s view of exile in literature of were more like my own than Said. Having said that, my own perspective as an audience greatly affected my previous reading, and the previous reading also affected my reading of “Grief and Reason.”
Brodsky’s style appealed to my senses from the beginning; his description of the room he is speaking in reflects my own style, and so his ethos was more appealing. His point of view is the complete opposite of Said’s: “Yet talk we must...literature...is known for taking care of it’s own kind,” and that through literature, “the mismanagement and grief that make millions hit the road could be somewhat reduced.” This argument is completely opposite of that of Saids’.
Furthering his appeal to me, he mentions that “literature is the only form of moral insurance that society has.,” and that it is the “teacher of human subtlety.” He actually points out that to interfere with “literature will slow down the pace of human evolution,” reinforcing his view that it is a necessary component of being human.
The fact that Brodsky point out the difference between what exile used to be, and what it is to the modern world constitutes the purpose for literature as a tool, even calling genre of exile writing a “tragicomedy.”
By pointing this out, it seems as though Brodsky is speaking directly to an audience made up of many Saids. Where Said believed Exile to be something incurable, Brodsky’s use of literature as a bridge between exiles and their emotions about exile in a modern time is appealing to an audience like me. Although it may not be for an audience made up of people with Said’s point of view.
He mentions how sad it is that “the sight of a writer in rejoicing in insignificance...” is rare, and almost “totally absent.” Immediately after this statement, he directs this to the audience: “At least, it is absent in this room...but saddening nonetheless.” I am sure the calling out of the audience on the subject makes them look up from not paying attention to ramblings they do not agree with, but Brodsky continues, saddening because if there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humanity.” This is my favorite line by Brodsky in this piece. He continues by considering the role a “commentator on life...considers it grim enough not to aggravate it any further...For the other truth is that exile is a metaphysical condition.” In his example of exile writers, such as Dante, or exiled characters such as Adam. He constantly ties literature as a human tool for understanding their place in the world, and how “literature too has taken on dimensions of a demographic phenomenon,” further example to his view.
Probably the most important argument for Brodsky is that exile is not a permanent state, but “ ‘exile’ covers at best the very moment of departure...” and that what happens after, in fact, has no name. He Exemplifies this by stating it is the reason for “the very fact of [their] gathering here indicates that, if we indeed have a common denominator, it lacks a name.” Wether or not the audience agrees with Brodsky’s view on Exile and literature, he creates the common ground by stating a reasons everyone can agree on. With that, he has opened the door for his audience to hear his perspective from a common ground, and so to end with reality that the idea that a “freed man is not a free man” is a paradoxical situation invites the audience to be open to what Brodsky has presented.
On “The Exile Speaks” and “El Exilio” by Virgil Suarez
“The Exile Speaks” is a short poem. Visually, it makes a statement: 7 short stanzas, 2 lines each. One would think a poem about speaking would be longer, because to speak is to say words. It is already not something one would expect. Red and black are the colors of the words the exile expresses, and the colors signify a darkness. This is reinforced by the “necessary longing for shadow.” Shadows seems symbolic of a presentation of something that was. The line continues in the next stanza, reinforcing the symbol of something lost, with “a corpuscle...and a dangling leaf.” “Fingers claw/ any dirt” depicts the exile who is not at home. It is not the dirt of his home he’d claw through, the emphasis on “any” dirt. All the memories of the past are bitter, “agrio/ like bile. It is an angry poem, and the dark images enforce the sense of exile as being something unnatural, something sour, and appeals to pathos. The anger depicted is an appeal to ethos, in the speakers anger. This is a strong emotion in conjunction with exile, and gives the impression of exile as something negative. Continuing with the line “why not forget?” appeals to the logos, in that if the memories concerning exile are bad, then it is within reason to forget. Ending with an image of dentures in the glass can represent the Exile shutting up, his teeth are gone, thus changing they way he speaks, or even taking away the ability to speak, “Away from the mouth,/ teeth sing to all those about to drown.” The teeth drown in a glass of water, the exile drowns and is forgotten, as do all the others.
“El Exilio” is a longer poem., and is a narrative more like a story, with clear images that invoke a tangible environment. Beginning with a quote from another poem about exile enforces the theme of exile: “if I shall ever return home.”
He presents his father as an exile not only from the country he was exiled form, but from the present country he resides in, watching “the world through two-inch/ window bars.” A prison. Exile is a prison he cannot escape. This appeals to his ethos as a prisoner of exile, detached. Anything the speaker of the poem attributes to his father as a character is in conjunction with what was left behind for his father. Their conversations are static, and returns back to either his exilic experience or of others who will also be exiled: even the cumulous clouds of miami are “a bad/ omen for those crossing the Florida Straits on make/shift rafts...” That is what concerns his father, and the narrator appeals to the pathos with such images.
In an appeal to logos, it is apparent the narrator’s father does believe in freedom, and unlike Cuba, he is able to walk freely without being questioned. never having learned english, the only words he learned lack in emotion, and are concerned with a surfaced view, almost negative view, or American ideologies. The narrator explains with was “El Exilio” that put him in this prison, and keeps him in there, while his mother continues on her daily duties, and reminded him that their exile is, in fact, a blessing. Life in America goes on, as his father is imprisoned in Exile.
