I read this book back in high school for a Shakespearean based course, and while I understood back then that this passage was about equality, I never thought too much about it. Reading this passage again definitely brought me back down memory lane, but it also gave me a new perspective on the intensity of what it means. I still feel as though the narrator is pleading for equality, but I think there’s more than just the plea; I think there’s a seeking for revenge, and wanting the people who have caused him and his people (the Jews) harm, to question their own morality and decisions. The initial question about the abuser’s reasoning for causing harm, followed by the immediate answer, “I am a Jew” is where I get the strong sense that the narrater …show more content…
Getting just a minor glimpse at the prison-like life the Jews lived made the question as to if they were viewed as humans, incredibly difficult to read. Or Che 'l Ciel Et la Terra e 'l Vento …show more content…
I believe these two people had a rather hectic relationship that wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and that the woman ended things out of exhaustion and frustration. The talk about things being silent is meant to represent the idea that there is no more fighting, and things are finally calm. The last line of the first stanza, “And the sea without a wave lies in it’s bed” (my favorite in the whole piece) begins the idea that the man/narrater is lonely without the woman, and is beginning to regret his actions towards her. The second stanza basically just explains how the man is going through the notions of coping, going through anger, frustration, regret, denial, trying to forget, and finally, acceptance in what he has lost. The lines, “War is my state, filled with grief and anger/ and only in thinking of her do I find peace” is really where I get the sense that he knows what he realizes it is his fault that things ended between them. The two contrasting words, war and peace, really emphasize the difference between the two personalities, where he is something so ugly and violent, and she is something everyone strives for. Finally, I get the idea that she left and hasn’t looked back. Bringing the idea to a modern viewpoint, when it says, “I am born and die a thousand times a day”, I thought that it could mean that he has tried