Summary of Ethics ( Pastan )

UNIT-13 Life and Death

Flax-Golden Tales

Ethics

– Four Levels of Interactions

Linda Pastan , USA ( 1932)

For : BA / BBS First Year (Business English )

Literal Comprehension:
This poem is composed by Linda Pastan in which she express her visiting a museum and looking at the Rembrandt painting . This makes her remember an ethics calss she had taken many years ago . Each fall the teacher presented the same question to the students; which would they choose if they were force by a fire in a museum to save either an old woman or a Rembrandt painting? The question had little meaning for the students , who were restless on hard chairs and who were little for pictures or old are , but each year they would half -hearted . Alternate their answer was one year for life , the next for art. To try or make the question more relevant to her life , the poet admits she would try to picture the old women as her grandmother . One year feeling clever , the poet decides herself. Saying this , the poet was placing the burden of the responsibility of choosing on someone else. This fall the poet finds herself as an old woman in a museum , before a real Rembrandt. As she studies the painting, she notices the colors are darker than autumn , darker even the winter. The painter ’s colors on the canvas are those deep colors seen at the end of a season. In the text line , however , she sees that through these dark colors earth’s most radiant elements burn. The final lines suggest wisdom and a comprehension that only comes with age . Now she understands the value of the painting, as she could not as a young girl. She remembers how little meaning either pictures or old age than had for her . The restless studies , now a mature woman , place equal value on life , art and nature . The restless students in the ethics class at the start of the poem can know nothing about old age , or about art, or even about natural life cycles – and they certainly cannot save one or the other form the death or destruction that awaits them all.

Interpretation:
The speaker in this poem has described very much impressive incident in her life . As this poem also deals with death and life , she seems to accepting her own approaching death rather than being depressed by it. She compares her youth and elderly life with a painting. In fact , the similarity with the Rembrandt panting carries an affirmation of life . Only as an old woman has been able to appreciate the power of the painting and the mystical ways in which human life , art and nature are linked . By the end of the poem , readers have been led to see that between spring and fall , between the shallowness of youth and the depth of old age , when one can finally experience life ’s more powerful truths. We can say that woman, painting and season all are changeable . No one can remain constant. As the season change so , the life of a woman changes . On the other hand as a painting after some time changes its color , so the life of human also changes . No one can stop change or time that ultimately leads death , decay or ruin.

Critical Thinking :
This poem is comparison and remembrance of past and present with a painting and season or woman. The poem has conversational tone ; the poet relates a personal experience from the past that takes on new significance in the present. Written in a simple language , use of figurate language , the poem tells a story in two parts, the second part drawing meaning from the first of its two parts defined as clear rhetorical units . Parallelism , prepetition, and irony are used in this poem suggest that it is beyond the ability of children to determine complex moral issue . This is an analogy of life with a painting. Though the poem focuses on the narrator ’s personal feelings , it has a good message of life for every human being . Like her , our life is a very changeable life , as the darkness and color of painting changes , so our life also fades and leads ultimately to death. There is value of every age to people.

Assimilation :
After reading this poem , I came to realize some knowledge of life , beauty , change as well as value of the people of every age . This poem influenced my way of thinking very much . I would never think about any problem seriously before this. I had no so deep knowledge of the value of an old person and time, now I came to know that ethically we should value old and senior people because they are the sources of knowledge and inspiration. I started to think everything carefully and seriously . It changed my thought.