Hello Everyone, welcome to my blog, This blog about Deconstructive Reading task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir (Head of the Department MKBU), for more information click here.
This blog task on How to Deconstruct a text, of three poems
1)Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
2) In a Station of Metro by Ezra Pound
3) The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams's
4)Dylan Thomas's poem 'A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London'
1) The poem Sonnet 18:- Shall I compare thee
"How to Deconstruct a Text: Sonnet 18—Shall I Compare Thee"
The Poem Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare talk about the beauty of beloved and comparing his beloved with summer's day, but the poet express his beloved more beautiful with comparing other things, and summer represent nature, like season while below represent beauty, love. In the poem using words represent something like, Temperate represent Balance and gentleness, rough winds represent violence and disruption in nature and decline represent fading beauty. Furthermore, the poet occupies a hegemonic position as the creator, deciding what beauty is and how it should be remembered.
Binary Opposition: Beloved vs. Nature
- The poem compares the beloved to summer but says nature is rough, short, and fades.
- He claims the beloved is better.
- But this is just his opinion—it’s built using nature’s language.
- So, the poem depends on nature even while trying to go beyond it.
- This shows a contradiction: it uses nature to say the beloved is better than nature.
Power over Time and Death
- The poet claims that death won’t touch the beloved.
- He suggests that poetry is stronger than time and death.
- But time and death are real forces—poetry is just made of words.
- Deconstruction asks: Can words really defeat death?
- Since language changes, it can’t fully control time or death.
The Illusion of Poetic Immortality
- The poem claims poetry can grant “eternal life,” but deconstruction shows that this is just a rhetorical illusion.
- Poetic immortality is dependent on the reader’s interpretation, the preservation of text, and the shifting norms of language—none of which are guaranteed.
- Thus, the idea of "forever" is not fixed; it is fragile and uncertain.
In this poem, the poet clearly holds a central and dominant position. Another contrast we can notice is how the poem emphasizes the idea that the beloved must stay beautiful forever. It suggests that if the beloved is beautiful, then the poet feels inspired to write. Also, beauty is judged by certain standards, and the poem mainly praises physical appearance.
2) In a Station of Metro by Ezra Pound
( Generate by Chat Gpt)
"The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough."
The poem is very short and When we see the visual image of this poem, and interpretation like a quick moment in a metro station and Image suggest that busy life of human beings. The poet sees many faces in the crowd. These faces appear suddenly, like a ghost or an illusion. It shows a contrast between light and dark, soft and hard, and between being alone and being lost in a group.
The Binary Opposition of the poem we can identify the Urban vs rural, soft vs darkness moreover we see the contrasting binary opposition of this poem, overall show a fleeting moment of beauty in a busy metro station. The faces in the crowd appear like delicate petals on a dark branch.
3)The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams's
( Generate by Chat Gpt )
"So much depend on a red wheelbarrow
Glazed with rain water,
Besides the white chicken."
The opening line, “so much depends”, suggests importance. But the poet never explains what depends or why. The phrase feels weighty but leads us only to a wheelbarrow and some chickens. In the image, the red color of the wheelbarrow and the white of the chickens stand in contrast, yet neither dominates.
The red wheelbarrow is a tool usually used for work or carrying things. But in the poem, it is just sitting still, wet with rain, not being used. Even though it’s not doing anything, the poem says that a lot depends on it. This makes the wheelbarrow feel strange because it doesn’t match its usual purpose.
The white chickens are also there, but they are quiet and not described much. We don’t know if they are important or just part of the background. The poem doesn’t explain, so it lets readers think in different ways and find their own meaning.
4) Dylan Thomas's poem 'A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London'
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
The Poem Claims Silence but Speaks Loudly
The poet says he refuses to mourn the child, yet the poem itself becomes an emotional expression of grief. This shows a contradiction between what the poet says and what the poem actually does.
Language Opposes the Poet’s Intent
Although the poet talks about being silent, he uses rich, symbolic, and poetic words. The poem is full of powerful language that expresses sorrow and spiritual meaning, even as it claims to avoid doing so.
Nature and War Are Mixed Together
The child died in a wartime fire — a violent, man-made event. But the poem uses natural images like “grains,” “river,” and “earth.” This blurs the line between natural death and human-caused destruction.
Binary Oppositions Collapse
The poem presents opposites like mourning/silence, natural/unnatural, war/peace — but these opposites fall apart. The poem tries to separate them but ends up mixing them, making meaning unstable.
Dylan Thomas’s poem "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" can be understood through a deconstructive reading, which looks at contradictions and hidden meanings in the text. At first, the poet says he will not mourn the child’s death, but the entire poem feels like a mourning itself, filled with serious and emotional language. For example, the final line says, “After the first death, there is no other,” but if it is the first death, then logically others could follow, which creates confusion. Also, the poem praises darkness instead of light, which goes against usual ideas where light is good and darkness is bad. The poem shifts between large, cosmic images and the real death of a child, without clearly explaining who the child is or why the poet refuses to mourn. These gaps and sudden changes show the poem is not as united or clear as it seems. Thomas also criticizes traditional mourning words but then uses poetic and grand language himself, showing that he cannot escape the limits of language. In the end, the poem says one thing but does another—it tries to avoid mourning but ends up mourning in a deep and symbolic way. This shows how language in the poem is full of contradictions, and meaning is unstable and complex.
Thank you !!
Reference
Barad, Dilip. Deconstructive Analysis of Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" and William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheelbarrow." ResearchGate, July 2024, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381943844_Deconstructive_Analysis_of_Ezra_Pound's_'In_a_Station_of_the_Metro'_and_William_Carlos_Williams's_'The_Red_Wheelbarrow'.
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