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SAMPLE TRAIN OF
THOUGHT
The
Situation: A
student must interpret the following poem by William Carlos Williams:
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The
Red Wheelbarrow
so
much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed
with rain
water
beside
the white
chickens.
|
The
Student's Train of Thought:
| What
does William Carlos Williams try to say in his
|
|
| Nothing,
if you ask me. It's just description, a nice picture---
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2 |
| wheelbarrow,
just after a rain,
|
|
| there's
no one around (did the people living there take shelter from the
rain?
|
|
| is
that why they're nowhere in sight?)
|
|
| no,
no one living but some white chickens. |
|
| Actually,
the more I think of it, the nicer, more pleasing, this picture
becomes. |
|
| to
please a reader by description? |
|
| A
writer doesn't always have to be "saying" something.
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|
| Let
me look at the poem again, |
|
| in
case I missed something first time through.
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3 |
| What
the hell am I supposed to do with "depends"? |
|
| "depends
upon"=can't do without. Right? |
|
| What
can't do without that wheelbarrow? The picture, I suppose---
|
|
| Without
that wheelbarrow, the picture would be different---just white
chickens!
|
|
| I
can see already that this is more than a case of
description. |
| When
I describe, I-I- |
| Well,
just paint the scene as I see it |
| and
leave it at that, |
| the
way I used to report on sports for the high school paper:
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4 |
| "With
two minutes left to play, |
| the
Rockville squad broke from its huddle |
| in
a brisk round of claps |
| (though
maybe even that wasn't just describing, |
| since
I wanted to do more than describe-- |
| I
wanted to get my reader excited) |
| Anyhow,
"depends" means there's definitely more than describing going on.
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5 |
| It's
as if I'd said, |
| "The
game depended on Jones" |
| which
is a matter of opinion. |
| But
wait-- |
| Is
"depends" in Williams' poem a matter of opinion? |
| No,
the picture does depend
on that wheelbarrow. |
| Without
it, the picture would change-- |
| that's
indisputable. |
| No,
I still think "depends" makes the poem more than
just description, |
| but
I haven't put the point precisely. |
| It
makes it more than just description, but that's not
because "depending" is a matter of opinion |
| (I
mean, as Williams uses it). |
| No,
"depends" makes it more than description because--- |
| Because
it can't be seen? |
| You
can see a wheelbarrow standing, |
| and
you can see white chickens |
| (milling
about or doing whatever they're doing), |
| but
you can't see whatever it is that depends doing
its depending. |
| Just
as you can see my poor roommate waking me up at
8 (so that I don't miss French) |
| but
you can't see me depending on him to wake me |
| even
though I do! |
|
This
is becoming heady and mildly confusing.
|
| |
| To
what point have I gotten so far?
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6 |
| Williams
isn't just describing, |
| he's
telling us something. |
| "depends"
would seem to be the key. |
| "depends
upon"=can't do without. |
| |
| And
what did I say was the thing that couldn't do
without the wheelbarrow? |
| Ah
yes---Williams' picture as a whole. |
| Do
I hear other possibilities?
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7 |
| Williams
says "so much"--"so much depends." |
| Well,
but that would make sense. |
| The
picture was not just a picture, |
| it
was a beautiful picture-- |
| the
beauty would be gone |
| without
that red wheelbarrow. |
| That's
worth a "so much" any day |
| (especially
from your sensitive types, like poets like Williams, |
| who
always go on about beauty). |
| |
| Intermission:
Who should now pay our thinker a visit but Kathy, an acquaintance
from class, wanting to borrow his lecture notes. Never one to refuse
an infusion of fresh ideas, he shows her the poem and asks her to
say what she thinks "depends" means. As luck would have
it, Williams' poem was discussed at length one day in Kathy's eleventh
grade English class, and she has an answer for him–her teacher's
answer, which Kathy accepts as correct. Kathy soon leaves, and the
student resumes his train of thought. |
|
|
| Hell!
How stupid of me! |
| Kathy's
teacher is right.
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8 |
| Of
course, |
| what
depends on a wheelbarrow is the job of taking
things from one place to another! |
| Williams
assumes everyone knows that! |
| (And
I do know. I've played
with toy wheelbarrows in my time. I know
what they're for.) |
| Why,
I wonder, didn't the obvious answer occur to me? |
| Maybe
I think poetry is never supposed to be obvious.
|
| |
| But
no, hold on---the more I think about it, there was more to it than
that.
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9 |
| |
|
| Look
at the lines again: |
|
|
|
|
| so
much depends |
|
| upon |
|
| a
red wheel |
|
| barrow |
|
|
glazed with rain |
|
| water |
|
| beside
the white chickens. |
|
| |
|
|
Whatever
the job is that he has in mind, Williams
makes it sound as if it couldn't be done by just
any wheelbarrow: |
| |
| What
it depends on is a wheelbarrow that's red |
| and
"glazed with rain water beside the white chickens." |
| If
I'm a farmer and I need to move some chicken feed, |
| I
don't say that I need a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water etc. |
| I
say I need a wheelbarrow! |
| I
swear, I read this poem better on my own, without
Kathy and her teacher. |
| Still,
I suppose it could be read as they read it. |
| It
could, I suppose, mean: |
| So
much depends on a red wheelbarrow that happens at the
moment to be glazed with rain water. |
| Just
as people say, |
| "So
much depends on a man |
| who
has had no experience in foreign affairs." |
| They
mean: |
|
So much depends on a man who, as it happens, has had no
experience. |
| That
is, the same "so much" would depend on him in
any case, though it happens he is inexperienced. |
|
This poem
is driving me crazy!
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How the story ends: The student rests
from his labors for a day, then rereads his train of thought and lists
the possible interpretations of Williams' poem which he has come up
with. Once again writing as he thinks, he considers each interpretation
again. ("They are all plausible," he writes. "But which
is most plausible?"). Despairing, he decides to count up the number
of syllables in each line and ponder line breaks–thinking that in so
doing he might turn up some further clue as to which reading is best.
However, he turns up no such clue. Finally, the possibility occurs to
him that Williams means to make two or more statements at the same time.
The student eventually sees that a particular pair of meanings makes
better sense as a reading than does any other combination of meanings
or any one meaning taken alone. He settles for that pair, but he is
neither perfectly satisfied with it nor altogether convinced that a
poet should mean two things at once.
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