The most basic idea of a structured society is usually composed of a high class, middle class, and low class. When we discussed Mullen’s “Mantra for a Classless Society, of Mr. Roget’s Neighborhood,” it was discovered that the seemingly simple poem actually had more substance to it than initially thought. When I first read this poem, I thought there wasn’t much to it, Mullen probably just grabbed a thesaurus and put synonyms together and structured the lines so that it would become a poem. I thought it was impossible to get some sort of meaning out of it, but I was completely wrong.
We established in class, several ideas that I agree with. The lines of synonyms actually have some sort of order, one that can be considered to be modeled after a social hierarchy. It starts out with words that describe “the wealthy,” or people higher up on the social ladder. They are “cozy” in their “shelters” and “protected concealed” most likely in gated communities. At the fifth to sixth lines the words begin to transition into descriptive words of the middles class. Immediately after that line, Mullen begins a description of the lower class. It was interesting to notice that there are less lines describing the “wealthy” and more lines describing the “poverty-stricken.” This led to the reasoning that there are wealthy people but they are the few compared to the majority of people who live under “uncomfortable” situations.
I was beginning to see that this poem had so much potential for interpretations. I could sort of make a connection between the title of the poem and its overall meaning. Obviously there seems to be some sort of contradiction because the title says a classless society yet for many reasons, when I read this poem the most dominate aspect of it is that there seems to a rough description of a social hierarchy which deals much with status and class. Since Mr. Roget’s Neighborhood is a reference to Roget’s Thesaurus, perhaps Mullen is trying to show that these words that she puts together are not just words. Usually, we do not see words as being separated into groups of words that are better than other words; that is the classless society. However, when the meanings are considered, can we truly say that because this word would describe the wealthy is a word higher up on some status quo for words? Mullen cleverly manipulates the words and structures them so that make a status quo out of something that is classless. In the end we forget that they are just words.
4 comments:
I, too, brushed off the poem upon first reading, which is probably a sign that I need to read her poems more carefully. I now agree that the poem portrays a word-by-word transition from the upper class downwards, but I can't help but think that we overlooked a major aspect of the poem -- the words themselves. The words, after all, were also words, not merely stereotypes we have come to associate with the classes; I would also note that in defining our class structures as we did, we clearly understood the meanings behind those words, but never explicitly considered them.
It seems that perhaps the social commentary evident in Mullen's poem could be clarified by not just considering her general class transition but the specific words she associates with each of the classes. I know most of the words, penniless, etc, are not really explanatory, but the transition to nervousness, that one line near the end that transitions in turn between monetary lack and stress... these are key shifts that we did not dwell on.
I was also impressed with how many layers this seemingly simple poem had. I agreed with many of the observations we made as a class - the division of the structure of the poem into classes, a gradual descent from wealthy adjectives to poor ones, and the fewer poor adjectives relative to the wealthy ones. What interested me most, however, was that it is a mantra for a [i]classless[/i] society, which was very ironic to me because we, as a class, so naturally divided this poem into the wealthy and poor class. Perhaps Mullen is suggesting that there really is no such thing as a real classless society.
I think most of us who read the poem the first time just read it and didn't think too much of what it meant, especially after we learned that Mullen likes to experience with different styles, trying to be incomprehensible. As for the meaning of the title, I thought that maybe Mullen was telling how looking up words in the thesaurus can lead us to completely change the meaning of the word we looked up in the first place. And since the meaning of the words start to change, then through these words, our original meaning start to change. Mullen shows through these synonyms that throught the thesaurus, the rich becomes the poor and society becomes "classless".
Actually, when I first read the poem, I though Mullen was trying to point out how the thesaurus could be faulty. I remember in high school, I would try to use the thesaurus to vary the words I would use--or utilize--but then the thesaurus would sometimes suggest words that are totally not what I am looking for. Moreover, I didn't notice Mr. Roget until after discussing in class. Having to have read so many poems for Mullen, I just skimmed through the title and I thought it said Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Yes, I know, what a blatant mistake, but I thought about the naivete of the people who live in Mr. Roger's neighborhood and how they would use a thesaurus just to simply diversify words without finding a real meaning to it. Before I embarrass myself anymore, let's discuss what you talked about.
I do recall how we agreed the poem is also an analogy to how the society is divided into groups. You mention high class, middle class, and low class. There is also working class and upper-middle class, but that's just going too far in-depth. Anyways, I do agree as to how the poem has so much more potential in its meaning, especially knowing what the Mr. Roget was referring to. Thanks
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