On Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:11:19 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 18:28:12 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
>
On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 14:12:44 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
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On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 20:15:36 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
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On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 19:31:54 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
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On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 11:29:25 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:
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George J. Dance wrote:
>
My Father's House
>
This is my father's house, although
The man died thirteen years ago.
They said it would be quite all right
To take a drive to see it now.
>
Dad laid those grey foundation blocks
And built the whole thing (from a box),
Toiling after each full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
>
Look, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
To enter; there I'd leave my things
And, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>
In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Oh, I guess!)
>
Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summers through,
While watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
>
That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such filthy things.)
Which, the corner where boys were put?
>
Oh ... down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To read or play alone, and then
>
Lights out: in bed by nine each night,
Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
Face and pyjama bottoms down
As for my father's belt I'd wait.
>
Oh, if I were a millionaire
I'd buy my father's house, and there
I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
Its flames would light up all the air.
>
~~
George J. Dance
from Logos and other logoi, 2021
>
Here it is, MFH.
>
Thank you for reposting this poem of mine, Will. While it's true that it
has been discussed a lot over the years, it also true that at least one
person wants to discuss it now; and this would be the appropriate place
to move those comments, rather than leaving them scattered all over the
group. So let's start with this one:
>
On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 16:15:27 +0000, Michael Monkey Peabrain (MPP) aka
"HarryLime" wrote:
On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 13:06:00 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
Why do you lie so much, George?
(That's a rhetorical question, as you've already intimated that your
pathological lying stems from you having been abused as a child.)
>
No, Lying Michael: I have never said, or even "intimated" (!) that I was
pathological, lying, or
"abused as a child".
>
You wrote a "mostly autobiographical" poem detailing the abuses you
suffered as a child, George. And you're demonstrating your pathological
obsession with lying in your trio of denials, listed above.
https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article.php?id=15801&group=rec.arts.poems
>
HarryLiar has manufactured yet another fake quote; I have never called
this poem "mostly autobiographical" or autobiographical in many ways. I
have distinctly told him in the past that, while some of the speaker's
memories were based on my own childhood experiences, not all of them
were; I was using them in a work of creative fiction, not an
autobiography of any kind. So he lied and made up a fake quote to
support his lie.
>
I haven't the time to go searching for the exact quote, but you had
initially maintained that it was "mostly autobiographical" or "mostly
based on your childhood," or similar words expressing the same thing.
>
If you don't have time, get your NastyGoon to search for it. In this
case I have to call your bullshit. You claimed the poem was
"autobiographical", and I tried to explain to you the difference between
creative literature and autobiography - repeatedly. You believe it's
autobiographical because you said it was autobiographical, and for no
other reason.
>
George, George, George... no autobiography is 100% accurate.
>
As I've told you before, I don't think the difference between creative
literature and autobiography is merely one of "accuracy." The difference
is that in the latter one is trying to be as accurate and comprehensive
as possible: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. Whereas in the former, one is selectively recreating an
experience, using experiences that reinforce the story.
Which has little to no bearing on one's reading a poem as as
psychoanalytical analysis of its author. An autobiography would
invariably be colored by its author's emotional feelings, and
selectively limited by their choices as to what to include, and how to
present it if included.
The only difference is that in an autobiography, the author is
(supposedly) attempting to be unbiased, where as in creative literature,
the author is allowing his biases to take center stage. Both provide
glimpses into the author as a person; and some would argue that creative
literature provides a deeper glimpse as it is allowing the reader to
share in the author's emotional responses to their experiences (whereas
the former is merely relating said experiences, with the cold, clinical
detachment of a reporter).
Any good psychologist will tell you that it's not so much the events
that happened to you, but your feelings about those events, that are
important.
People
present *their* interpretation of the various events comprising their
lives. And everyone's interpretation is colored by various factors.
>
The question, though, is whose interpretation? If I were writing an
autobiographical account, it surely wouldn't be 100% accurate; but in
this case I was creating a fictional persona, and giving his
"interpretation".
>
Your constant misrepresentation of the poem as an autobiography
(including misquoting me, as we've seen) indicates that you're convinced
that you just can't see that difference; you've got the idea in your
head that this is how I'd "interpret" the events of my childhood (not to
mention my young manhood).
As previously noted, I don't believe I've ever called it
"autobiographical" unless I was using it as shorthand for
"semi-autobiographical" -- which I would have specified in the same
post. I realize that you don't understand the importance of context,
but there's really nothing I can do about that.
I call your poem "semi-autobiographical" or note that (as per your own
statement) it was mostly based on your childhood. If you want to draw a
distinction between "semi-autobiographical" and "creative literature
based on events from your childhood," go right ahead. But the
differences between the two are minimal.
"David Copperfield" is a highly fictionalized account of Charles
Dickens' childhood and young manhood. And his biographers, rightly,
refer to it when describing parallel incidents from his life. It is
*because* "David Copperfield" is a fictionalized account of Dickens'
early life as seen through *his* eyes, to present *his* perception of
himself that it is so valuable a tool for discovering who Dickens really
was.
IOW: The more you've chosen to fictionalize, color, or otherwise alter
the event of your childhood, the more valuable your poem becomes as a
tool for psychoanalysis.
This is why your perception of Dr. NancyGene's and my analyses of your
poem strike you as personal attacks, whereas from my perspective the
*only* way to examine a semi-autobiographical poem on child abuse is
consider the speaker and the poet as being essentially the same
individual.
>
Well, no, HarryLiar, I "interpret" your comments on the poem, and "Dr."
NastyGoon's as personal attacks because you use them for personal
attacks.
And you wonder why we have diagnosed you as suffering from a persecution
complex!
A good example is your opening paragraph that I quoted, where
you use your account of the poem, plus your misinterpretation of
something else I'd said, to call me a "pathological liar".
No, George. I call you a pathological liar because you have shown
yourself to be one time and time again. "Pathological liar" is a
personality characteristic that one accepts as a "given" when opening
any psychoanalytical discussion on you.
The more you
try to pretend comments like that that are not personal attacks, but
just comments on a poem, the harder it is to believe anything you say.
I can't make you believe it, George. Most patients experience an
initial sense of distrust regarding their analyst; coupled with a sense
of resistance and denial. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to
gain a patient's trust in an online forum -- especially when the patient
is suffering from a persecution complex with accompanying feelings of
paranoia.
In fact, Karla's oft-quoted adage aside, one can *never* fully separate
the two.
For instance, all of the characters in any author's fictional novel are
going to represent some aspect of the author. Every poem stems from its
author's imagination... regardless of what external persons and/or
events might have inspired it.
>
That sounds like another contradiction to me. Previously you said that
"every" character in a novel represents an aspect of the author, and now
you admit that at least some are actually inspired by other people.
I've admitted no such thing. I clearly restated my opinion that "all of
the characters in any author's fictional novel are going to represent
some aspect of the author."
Of
course they're filtered through the author's imagination, but that's the
precisely the point I'm trying to make to you: that the poem is a work
of imagination, not simply a recitation of facts. The poem uses my
memories, but it's not based on my memories; it's based on my speakker's
memories as I imagined them to be.
And again, I can only repeat that the more a poem utilizes creative
imagination in its retelling of past events from your life, the more
valuable it becomes as a tool for understanding your psyche.
Every literary work is similar to a
dream construct in that regard; and like a dream construct, can be
analyzed by a psychologist, a literary critic, or even the average
reader. Since "My Father's House" was based to a large extent on your
own childhood experiences, it literally begs for a psychoanalytical
reading.
>
Forgive me if I use the term "psychobabble" again, but that's precisely
what your mention of "analyzing" dream constructs put into my head. It
reminded me of how your Dr. Freud came up with his theory of the Oedipus
Complex (which you and the other "doctor" claimed I suffered from) by
"analyzing" a child's dream about two giraffes.
Actually, your statement is a textbook example of "psychobabble." First
off, I'm going to define "psychobabble" as the nonsensical statements
made by people who use psychoanalytical and psychiatric terminology
without fully understanding what they mean. In this instance, you've
chosen to cite a story about Sigmund Freud which you do not really
understand.
Freud did *NOT* "come up with his theory of the Oedipus Complex... by
'analyzing' a child's dream about two giraffes." Freud used the dream
of "Little Hans" to *SUPPORT* his already existent theory of the Oedipus
Complex. The difference is extremely significant, as your false
recantation implies that a complex theory was based upon something as
trivial as *one* interpretation of *one* dream experienced by *one*
individual boy.
Such was not the case. Freud's theory had been formulated from a
lifetime treating mental illnesses in hundreds of patients. Little
Hans' dream merely served as a means of explaining (and supporting) his
theory.
Despite your claims of taking the reader through Little George's home
(with the same floor plan as its real life counterpart) on a
room-by-room basis, you jump from the kitchen to the garden.
>
Your insistence on calling the speaker "George" is annoying (although it
is preferable to the "Boy George" nickname you previously borrowed for
him him and then insisted on calling me). I think you're just playing
with words to blur the very distinction between speaker and writer that
I'm trying to make with you. So I'm going to start calling him "Bob"
instead.
In our previous sessions, we had agreed on referring to the speaker as
"George" when referring to him in his capacity as narrator (and
including the framing stanzas), and as "Little George" when referring to
the 6-year old whose story his is recalling.
It's telling how you remember the humorous use of "Boy George," but fail
to recollect our resolution to your objections. It's even more telling
that you are "going to start calling him 'Bob'" as if in retaliation for
what you perceive to be an ongoing attack.
I am
guessing that you'd originally written the garden stanza to come first
within the body of the narrative, but had later switched it with the
kitchen stanza based on the severity of the (potentially perceived)
abuses.
>
No, you guessed wrong again; the stanzas were not switched. The poem
switches from the kitchen to the garden because the speaker is looking
out the window, and in the floor plan of the house (which I've told you)
the kitchen window overlook s the garden at the back of it.
That's structurally poor, and even more poorly expressed. You should
start with the garden and work your way into the house. That's just a
little constructive criticism, and not a personal attack.
In this stanza, Little George is forced to spend his summers
working in the garden -- while enviously watching the neighborhood
children. Because Little George describes their games as "mis
>
You seem to have "frozen up", HarryLiar. That's not a big deal, of
course; I realize that responding to a long post takes time: one often
gets interrupted, even in mid-sentence. I mentioned it only because you
and "Dr." NastyGoon have pointed to it, when I did it, as evidence that
I suffered from not just psychological but various neurological
diseases.
In this case it's a problem related to my having to access NovaBBS on my
laptop.
No offense to RetroGuy intended, but because my NovaBBS account is only
accessible from my laptop (and not on my PC), I am forced to type on
keyboard where touching certain areas of the mousepad with the lower
portion of my hands can set off commands that delete large chunks of
texts, reposition my cursor, etc. In this instance, I appear to have
unintentionally highlighted and deleted a passage while typing the word
"is."
I was drawing attention to Little George's description of the games as
"mysterious" and his admission that he "never knew" what these mysteries
were. Since the games forever remained cloaked in mystery, it is
obvious that Little George was employed in chores all day long. He had
no free time to play with the other children (in which case their games
would no longer be mysteries to him).
How autobiographical is your poem? Let's see.
>
In the poem "Little George" states that the house came in a box, and
that he helped his father assemble it, You had said that in real life,
your house came in a box, and that you helped your father assemble it.
>
Little George tells how he was made to use the back door, had to take
off his shoes (and things), and wait for permission to enter. In real
life, you had to use the back door, and remove your shoes before
entering as well. I don't recall whether you also had to wait for
permission.
>
True; in real life, the entire family removed their shoes on entering
the house, and that's a reason we used the back door (because it had a
landing where the shoes could be left. If I were writing an
autobiography, I'd mention it that way; but because I'm imagining a
fictional speaker's memories, I omitted that detail. As for needing to
have permission to enter; I recall a few times when I was chased back
outside, but it wasn't an everyday thing. Once again, I was not
recounting events as I remembered them, but events as how I'd imagine my
speaker remembering them.
I don't see where that matters much, George. It casts the incident in a
slightly better light... but only slightly.
I was allowed to enter and exit through the front and back doors at
will. I could even run in the front door, race through the living room
and kitchen and exit by the back door if I felt like it -- and I never
had to take off, or put on, my shoes before doing so.
From my perspective, that atmosphere sounds restrictive and
repressive... but at least the restrictions didn't apply to Little
George alone.
You have also stated that the house in the poem is laid out exactly your
real life childhood house, and that you have intentionally chosen to
take the reader through this house room by room. You have also said
that you intentionally chose to present each room along with a
description of a (possibly abusive) memory associated with it.
>
Yes I did. I gave you the latter description in the very post you're
replying to. Since you've buried it, it may be a good idea to move it up
here:
Since we both remember it, I see no point in doing so, but whatever
makes you feel more comfortable.
S1 - the speaker revisits the house (after getting permission from
someone unspecified).
S2 - the speaker remembers his father building the house.
S3 - the speaker enters the back door, and remembers having to always
have had to use that door.
S4 - the speaker goes into the kitchen, and recalls having to wash
dishes.
S5 - the speaker looks out the kitchen window at the garden, and recalls
having to work in it when he'd rather be playing.
S6 - the speaker goes into the living room, and recalls not being
allowed to sit wherever he chose.
S7 - the speaker thinks about his bedroom (but does not go there) and
remembers being sent there to be alone after dinner until bedtime.
S8 - the speaker continues to think about his bedroom, and remembers
having an early bedtime and being subject to corporal punishment.
S9 - the speaker wishes he could burn the house down.
>
The first room in Little George's house is the kitchen. Little George
associates this room with having to wash dishes, while looking out the
window and wishing that he was some other place. In real life, you were
also made to wash dishes. This is not uncommon. Most children 50 years
ago were given chores to perform. I had chores to do as well. The
difference is that I was paid a weekly allowance for doing them, and had
the option of quitting my "job" at my discretion.
>
Unlike you, I did not receive an allowance, and I was not able to walk
away and leave the dishes dirty when I wanted to do something else.
Unlike both you and Bob, I washed dishes twice a day with my sister (and
later with one of my step-nieces). That last is another detail I changed
for dramatic effect.
Again, that strikes me as having lived in a repressive and restrictive
atmosphere. It also gives me the impression that your parents treated
you and you sister (and step-nieces) as little slaves.
In spite of your claim that you were taking the reader on a tour of
Little George's house (which has the same floorplan as your real life
childhood home), the narrative jumps from the kitchen to the garden.
I'm guessing that the garden stanza originally came before the kitchen
one, but that you later rearranged the stanzas to present the supposed
"abuses" in order of severity (as you have recently stated). Little
George spends his summers working in the garden, all the while envious
of the neighborhood children who are free to play at their will. The
fact that Little George calls their games "mysterious" and laments that
he "never knew" them implies both that he had to spend the entire day
doing chores and that he was not allowed to join the other children in
their games.
>
It sounds like you're repeating yourself;
Since this is a long and rambling post, I felt it best to reiterate my
points for focus.
but maybe it's worth making
the same points in return. I wasn't *always* working in the garden,
while my friends were always working - though that's how it seemed
sometimes when I was working and they were playing - so that's how I had
Bob remember it.
>
Was George Dance also forced to work in the garden all day/denied the
fun of playing with the other children? I don't know. I'm guessing
that he was, because many children had gardens that they tended every
day. I certainly did. I would spend an hour or so tending my garden
every morning -- along with my mother and siblings. I loved my garden
and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was also allowed to play with
the local kids who would drop by on an almost daily basis.
>
That sounds like a little flowerbed.
Not at all. We had a little flowerbed in the brick flowerbox that was
built as part of one of the outside walls. We were surrounded in
flowers, but apart from the flowerbox (where we grew marigolds,
hyacinths, and pansies) most were perennials and didn't require any
care. We had a bed of moonflowers, a bed of irises, morning glories
growing up the side of the house, tulips growing along the length of the
front wall, three daffodil beds, crocus beds at either end of our
driveway, rose bushes lining the side of our driveway at the edge of the
field, two forsythia bushes, a pussy willow bush, a wisteria bush that
covered a double-sided wooden bench with a roof, a magnolia tree, about
two dozen flowering shrubs of different colors (red, white, pink, and
purple, a golden chain tree, bleeding hearts, two mimosa trees, two
dogwood trees, a black cherry tree, three crabapple trees, along with
wildflowers (daisies, clover, ladyslippers, Queen Anne's lace,
black-eyed Susans, buttercups, etc.).
Our house was situated on my Grandmother's property. Her lot was
approximately three acres wide x one mile deep. Her house was on one
side of ours, and her one acre field was on the other side. My
Grandfather had grown crops there, but had passed away several years
before my birth. We used a section of the field, roughly 6x25 feet to
grow our garden. My Sister, Brother and I each had our own patch
comprising 1/3 of that area. We grew tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini,
sunflowers, corn, radishes, carrots, watermelons, lettuces, string
beans, and peas. And we harvested and ate what we grew.
We also had a cherry tree, two apple trees, three pear trees, a plum
tree, and a grape arbor (producing both green and red varieties; along
with wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberry bushes.
Suffice it to say, both my father's
garden and my own were produce gardens, where we grew virtually all our
own vegetables. So it was a much bigger task, which took me at least a
couple of hours a day (and pretty much every day when school was out);
and again, like you, I could not simply drop everything and go off to
play during that time. There was plenty of times though that my friends
were doing work and my sister and I were the ones playing; and even more
when we all had free time and could play together.
I'm glad for you, but we are discussing "Little George," who "never
knew" what the "mysterious" games played by the other children were. That doesn't strike me as a fictional embellishment, because it's hard
not to recognize a game of tag even if you're not one of the children
playing it.
Little George's next stanza opens with the line "That room's all
changed" implying either that the garden is a room, or that he is taking
the reader on a walking tour of his childhood house. This appears to be
another problem caused by switching the kitchen and garden stanzas'
position in the narrative.
>
The "problem" seems to be caused by your either: (1) not realizing the
speaker could have been looking "outside" through a window; or (2) your
constant attempts, in your guise as literary critic, to find errors in
the poem. The garden stanza is deliberately s5 (the mid stanza of the
poem), for reasons I'll have to explain.
>
There are two stanzas where the D line is a rhymes perfectly with the
A-B lines; s5 and s9. The reason that the failure of the others to
rhyme, as I'm sure I've explained to you before, is to subliminally
reinforce the idea that Bob is having trouble completing his thoughts.
Whereas in s5 and s9 he does bring his thoughts to a conclusion; in s5
he realizes that (IHO) he's been deprived as a child, and in s9 he
realizes that he wants to be rid of those memories.
That's waaaaaaaaaaaay to technical a device for any reader (or critic)
to pick up on. As I've said, you spend far too much thought on
structuring your poetry, and giver far too little rein to your emotions.
I'm assuming that it's the living room,
although Little George neither specifies nor gives us any other clue
than that it contains a chair on which he is forbidden to sit.
>
Actually, the room contains one chair in which Bob is allowed to sit.
But, yes, it's the living room. I don't know how things were in your
home, but in mine and most of the one's I've encountered, the living
room was where the family sat together. (In Britain it's actually called
the "sitting room").
Our living room was for the family to sit together -- often watching
watching tv. We also played board games on the floor, practiced piano
there, and read books and played records (as that our bookcases and
record shelves were). I was allowed to sit on any chair I pleased, and
we often built fortresses out of the cushions and/or jumped up and down
on the sofa during the day.
IIRC,
George Dance stated that while he was also barred from using the living
room furniture, the parental description of boys as "filthy things" was
derived from the life of another boy that he knew.
>
There was in fact only one place for the children to sit in my family's
living room, though it was a couch (for all the children), not a
separate chair.
>
Last stop on the tour is the bedroom. Little George is sent there after
dinner every night where he feels as if he is trapped within a tomb --
alone and forced to pass the time quietly playing by himself. "Each
night" at 9pm, Little George was forced to turn out the lights,
>
Yes, I was, but "Each night" is a bit of an exaggeration; that was
actually each night in which I had school (or something equally
important) the next day. On weekends and in the summer, I could stay up
later, and go outside after dinner until dark, and that was all free
time. Once again, if I were relating an autobiography (which it looks
like you've forced me to do) I'd have mentioned those exceptions, but as
I was not recounting my memories but Bob's, I had him exaggerate.
I was allowed to stay up till midnight on school nights (I refused to
miss Johnny Carson's monologue) and as late as I could stay awake on the
weekends. Again, I grew up in a much less restrictive atmosphere than
you.
and lie
face down in bed with his pajama pants pulled down and his bare behind
awaiting his father's belt. George Dance hasn't said that this bedtime
ritual occurred on a daily basis in real life, but has intimated that
the "spankings" (which he refused to call "whippings" even though the
blows were delivered with a belt) frequently took place.
>
Well, being "whipped" (to use your preferred term though there was no
whip involved) took place too often for my liking, but I certainly
wouldn't call it a "bedtime ritual" (which does make it sound like it
happened on some fixed schedule irrespective of how I behaved). And Bob
clearly states that that happened only "some nights".
The use of a (presumably leather) belt is a form of whipping. A
spanking is when one is smacked on the bottom with an open hand. Since
your father used a belt, it was a whipping. I am not implying that he
used a cat o'nine tails -- although Little George would probably have
seen it that way.
So, pretty much the entire "flashback" portion of the poem was based on
real events from George Dance's childhood. Some of the events may have
been slightly exaggerated, or enhanced, for dramatic purposes, and one
item was interpolated from another boy's stories about his own
childhood.
>
No, I did not say I got the expression "boys can be such filthy things"
from another boy's account to me. IIRC, it was just something I read
somewhere. I did a lot of reading as a child and as a young adult, and a
lot of the speakers' "memories" and other thoughts use what I've read
(and simply imagined) as well as what I directly experienced.
Unimportant. Either way the expression wasn't used about you in real
life, and would have had no bearing on your psychological growth.
This leaves the "modern" portions of the narrative which
frame the flashback portion.
>
I don't think you can separate the poem like that. Bob's actions, and
Bob's memories, are fully integrated - you cannot separate the memories
from the fact that Bob's remembering them.
They are necessarily separated: the framing sections represent Little
George in his present day state (under psychiatric care, suffering from
pent up rage, wishing to obliterate all recollection of his childhood). The flashback portion may be told (and colored) by Grownup George in his
present state, but the events still happened to Little George.
I don't believe the narrator is making the various memories up. He is
only presenting them in a negative light.
In the modern portion, it is strongly
implied (by George Dance's own explanation) that the speaker is
receiving some form of psychiatric care, and is probably residing in a
mental hospital.
>
I thought that was an interesting touch from the beginning, though (as I
made it clear in previous explanations) there is no reason to think,
from the fact that Bob was in the house with permission, that he was in
a mental hospital or that he was under psychiatric care. His mental
state is obviously disturbed - as noted, he has difficulty staying on
one subject and drawing conclusions - but I think those could follow
from the situation (he's experiencing childhood memories that he'd
rather not) rather than his own mental state.
Little George says that "they" told him it would be okay to visit the
house he grew up in. This could imply either his doctors or the family
living there. My own interpretation is that he broke in to the house
while the family was out -- but it's possible that he was being
conducted on a tour of the house by its present occupant/s.
Again, his incomplete thoughts just come across as bad writing. This
sort of thing works much better in a short story, where you can contrast
an omniscient narrator's voice with Adult George's monologues about each
room in the house.
Come to think of it, the entire piece would work better as a short
story, where the ambiguity regarding the severity of the punishments
could be more fully explored, and where you would not have the necessity
to rhyme about a serious and disturbing subject.
He has permission to leave the grounds during the day,
and (unrealistically) to visit his childhood home that is now occupied
by another family.
>
Yes, the idea that someone confined to a mental hospital would be given
a day pass to go off on a road trip by himself is very "unrealistic" and
(while I liked it being as possibility) it's not a very logical
possibility. I believe you went for it because you wanted to and went on
to claim that Bob broke into the house, and you had to get rid of the
idea that he had permission to be there.
I believe that in my initial reading I overlooked the "they said" line's
significance altogether, and that you had to point it out. I did think
that he had broken into the house.
"Grownup George" ends the poem by expressing his
wish that he would like to burn his father's house to the ground.
>
So Bob does. It's a very dramatic ending, which could make a reader
think that he was a psycho -- iff the reader had already decided he was
a psycho. Which is why I had Bob daydream about being able to buy the
house and burn it, rather than simply start looking for matches and
gasoline. As I said, I wanted to balance things and let the reader draw
her own conclusions.
The ending would have been far more powerful if it didn't have to
overcome the children's book style rhyme, and if Little George simply
struck a match to light up a cigarette and wondered about burning the
house down -- leaving it open-ended as to whether or not he does.
That's more constructive criticism, and not an attack on your work.
The framing story, is obviously fictional insofar as real life George
Dance is not living in a mental institution, and is not (to the best of
my knowledge) undergoing psychiatric care.
>
As I say, it's impossible to separate the two. The Bob who's walking
through the house, and looking out the window, is the same Bob who's
remembering these things; and the fact that Bob's having those memories,
is the same fact as that he's remembering them. If you decided, from s1,
that he's escaped from a mental institution (which is what you meant by
claiming it's "unrealistic" for him to have got permission to visit the
house), then you'd go on to look for confirming evidence in s2-s8, which
is what it sounds like you did.
You seem to be saying that it's impossible to separate the fictional
George from his real life counterpart. I don't think this is what you
mean, but in context of the sentence you're responding to, that would be
the only way to read it.
It is, however, reasonable
to conclude that the author thinks of his childhood home as *his
father's house*
>
Yes, of course it was *his father's house*, just as the home I grew up
in was my own father's house. He built it with his own hands; but even
if he'd just bought it or even rented it, it would still be his, the
place he provided for his family to live. I'd consider a child's refusal
to acknowledge that fact to be a sign of rivalry and resentment, a
refusal to give one's father due credit.
I see that is being terribly wrong. It is *your* home. And, as such,
it is *your* house -- as your house is the physical structure where
you've made your home. My childhood home was either "My house" or "Our
house." There is no hint of rivalry or resentment there. The house
represents family, togetherness, equality among family members, and the
like. OTOH, "My Father's house" represents both detachment and
resentment, and the child wants to have no part of it.
and that he still harbors some anger toward his father
(even though his father is presumed to be deceased).
>
Bob certainly has unresolved issues with his father, but "anger" (much
less the desire for revenge "De." NastyGoon attributed to him) is a
matter of interpretation. OTOH, whether Bob's father is dead or not is
not a matter of interpretation; it's clearly stated in the poem.
I had to scroll up to find it.
I just don't find it memorable... probably because I don't find it
relevant to the analysis. Whether Dad is alive or not doesn't change
Grownup George's feelings toward him.
In short, the bulk of the narrative is based on real life memories from
its author's childhood.
>
All my poetry is "based" on my memories, but (as I've told you) my
memories include much more than direct experience). In this case, I
mainly used my own memories of my childhood because they worked. I
certainly had issues with my father as a teenager when I lived there,
and for a small time after I ceased to do so, and I wanted to make Bob's
issues no different from mine.
Everyone's poetry is based on their memories to some extent. However,
when you set the poem in your house, and base the characters on yourself
and your family members (to some extent), the poem becomes *more*
autobiographical than a poem you wrote set in a foreign land that you'd
never been to. Again, I point out the fact that "David Copperfield" was
a work of fiction -- but that the parallels to Dickens' own life make it
autobiographical to a large degree. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is
similarly based on people and events from Mark Twain's childhood --
although Twain has taken a great deal of artistic license regarding
them. It is not an autobiography (he wrote one of those as well), but
it is largely autobiographical. It also provides the reader (or
analyst) with a clear picture of *how* he looked back on his childhood.
Why then all the fuss about my having called it "autobiographical"?
>
Because you not only repeatedly insist that it's "autobiographical" when
you've been told it wasn't, you try to draw conclusions about me from
it. (One particularly funny example of that, which I have to mention, is
a claim you made that I call you and "Dr." NastyGoon malicious trolls,
not because I perceive the two of you as malicious trolls, but because I
perceive you as "parent figures" and I'm calling you both trolls just to
somehow get revenge on my real parents. "Psychobabble", as I've said.)
There is nothing malicious in examining your story from an analytical
standpoint. This is the approach that Marie Bonaparte took when writing
"The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psychoanalytic
Interpretation." Since stories (and narrative poetry) and dreams arise
from the same part of our psyche, it's not only natural, but can prove
highly rewarding, to approach fictional works as if they were the
author's dreams. And when those works have a clear autobiographical
basis (by which I mean "creative fiction" based on one's life -- like
"David Copperfield" and "Tom Sawyer"), the rewards from taking a
psychoanalytical approach to them are even greater.
Yes, we were having a little innocent fun by addressing one another as
"Dr.," but there were hardly any malice to be found there. Nobody
thinks that you are actually our patient, George. Nor were we trying to
convince anyone of such.
It's a typical Straw Man argument intended to divert the discussion from
examining the psychological aspects of the narrative, and to falsely
represent an attempt to provide an in-depth analysis of the poem as a
personal attack upon himself.
>
Not at all. Seeing the poem as "autobiographical" allows you to present
your so-called analysis of Bob as an analysis of me, and try to justify
your own "attacks" on me. As you often do, want to label the poem
"autobiographical" (just as you want to call Bob "George") as if, a la
Orwell, the words you use somehow prove your arguments.
>
Good old paranoid, perpetually persecuted George.
Please consider the above observation to be repeated.
And, since that last line of yours was what your "analysis" was meant to
establish, and your only reason for your undertaking it in the first
place, it's a good place to conclude this post.
Not at all. No one is out to get you, George. That's what you need to
understand.
I examined your poem from a psychoanalytical perspective as I feel it
that best means of approaching a poem about childhood abuse and how it
can have psychological repercussions in one's adult life (pent up rage,
wanting to torch one's childhood home, requiring psychiatric care). And
that was my only reason for doing so.
-- 
My Father's House / gjd (for new comments)
Re: My Father's House / gjd (for new comments)
