This small combination of Charles Lamb poems and essays
alone provides a great deal of insight into to the writer’s world-view. It is
clear to me that Lamb adheres to the camp of determinism, in which people
believe they are controlled by outside circumstances that they have little
power to alter. In the poem, “The Old Familiar Faces,” Lamb assumes very little
agency. He acts only in acquiring and knowing his beloved ones, hence, “I had a
mother,” and “I loved a love once.” However, Lamb is rarely the subject that
actively ends these relationships, rendering his family and friends “old
familiar faces.” In fact, the final stanza plays heavily on all persons’ loss of
agency, as Lamb italicizes the line, “And
some are taken from me.”
Lamb’s desperate world-view is carried over into his essays.
In Dream-Children Lamb puts forth that we are all mesmerized and our lives
dictated by the histories that come before us and even more so by the desires
that dangle in front of us, which is made evident by the ending in which he
realizes he has been imagining a life with John and Alice he only ever dreamt
of. Similarly, it is the career that consumes us in “The Superannuated Man,”
ruling every aspect of our lives until we are able to break free.
I think that it is very interesting that you say that Lamb assumes little agency because as a writer, he is taking agency in writing his essays in poem. However, I agree that while he takes this agency, he takes a very passive role in his works. For example, he only leaves his career when his employers release him; he does not actively terminate his job. Also, in "Dream Children" while he describes what everybody else is doing, he seldom mentions his own action and interaction with them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Miranda in that he gives up a lot of his own agency in his poems and essays. He never takes responsibility for his life or what happens to him, but always blames somebody else for it. I think this has much to do with the idea that Lamb sees every loss of a relationship as death. He sees someone leaving his life by death and someone just leaving his life as equal and unchangeable. Because Lamb has realized he cant do anything about death and the sadness it brings, he completely gives up on the opportunity to reclaim those relationships lost for other reasons.
ReplyDeleteIf Lamb's worldview is indeed determinisitic, it would explain the scenario in Dream Children. Since in the real world there is nothing he could have done to achieve his desire of marrying Ann Simmons, he turns to dreams and memories to do this. He alters the past in his mind to gain what he could not gain in reality.
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