1958 -
What are we doing?
- learning a pattern of thinking and analysis for poetry
taking something into the next classes (4U) and into a poetry assignment
teach a pattern for you to use in place of questions
we want to find ways to dig deeper - symbols and allegories and deeper meanings
1958
Context - we have to learn (for analysis) something about the 50s
we look for stuff in the poem that we recognize as fitting the era
we know these things aren’t NOW and we see the title, so we assume -
research or consider common cultural knowledge - ie movies, other songs, etc
things IN the poem and things we just KNOW
this poem has a title that suggests, hey, we need to contextualize
fashion elements - musical elements - subject matter - formal conventions (the way something is done - ie black and white, slower paced editing)
Form = glass
Content = water
Recap the Whole Decade
post WW2, this is big deal - the entire world has been shaken to the core
The Holocaust - Nuclear Weapons - Communism
Rock and Roll came out of nowhere (not true) in 1956 - where did it come from?
Black culture - WHAT!? This must be a very bad, scary, dangerous kind of music! because black people are bad, scary, dangerous people (if, in fact, they are actually people) - the belief at the time wasn’t too far from this
the onset of teen culture -
the rise of modern advertising - super manipulative, psy-ops tricks
teenage life becomes something depicted as separate and special and it becomes a marketing target for everyone
nostalgia makes people forget the bad things, or romanticize them in a strange way
savages of the Fifties - ruthless - why? white, middle-class, 50s kids with cars and clothes and money and selfish desires and they are ignorant of the lives and problems and feelings of others -
terrible perfect bodies - you’re at your peak here, folks - this is when you’re at your best - “youth is beauty” and that beauty, when combined with the ruthlessness above can make for a nasty combo - they are fake
imagery - kind of - referring to the smells - the writer is sensitive
slang talk, cool cat talk - ridic now, but we have the same stuff
the girls are focus on, especially their clothes, which tells us about the narrator
the mean girls have a code of clothing and behaviour and this narrator is not following the code - just like today
Xenobia - Cat Woman - images of female strength and violence - a nice way to describe the Queen of the School -
what is the factor that makes any kid a “Queen of the School” - confidence
tough = confidence = can’t be hurt
“the boys learned shop and the girls sewed shaky seams” - Western Technical High School- old fashioned sex roles for men and women
these are kids who are right on the lower middle class rung - not rich, not poor, lower middle and will always be there.
the kids in this school expect X and that is all - they are already at their peak in every way
this pattern, this expectation structure IS the 50s - it IS 1958
the 60s show us the reaction to this world that this poem is about
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