Barbara
Benjamin
16 March 1996
Explication of "Memories of
CONFESSIONAL MODE
The "I" in
By the end of stanza 1, we learn that the
speaker is experiencing middle-age panic, and it's
accompanying concerns about age and loss of youth. He remarks of his nine-month old daughter
that she is young enough to be his granddaughter. Phrasing the comment in this manner shows a
concern of having lost that time in his life he should have been a father. Also, the baby is
mentioned, not in a proud and fatherly way, but in a way that reflects a kind
of shamefulness. Further, he says she
rises "like the sun" in her "flame-flamingo infants' wear." There are at least two images evoked by this
line. One of the images is regarding the
"flame-flamingo infants' wear."
Most babies wear "baby clothes." "Infants' wear" is an almost
cynical phrase. It is
a formal title given to the section in a store that sells baby clothes. Like the neighborhood he lives in, his
daughter is above wearing mere "baby clothes." The same analysis applies to the color the
baby wears. The name
"flame-flamingo" sounds like a marketing gimmick akin to signature
clothes. Also,
babies usually wear soft, pastel colors.
The bold, bright color this child wears shows that her clothing is
special. Her mother certainly doesn't shop in a common department store, rather, expensive
boutiques. The comment, then, about the
baby's clothes, continues the image of snobbery created so far. A second image becomes clearer after reading
stanza 2.
The second stanza accentuates the age
theme. Here we learn the speaker is
forty. This information recalls the
comment made in stanza 1 that the baby rises "like the sun." The image of her rising is in direct contrast
to someone forty who's
at the midpoint of his life; thus, whose sun is descending. Asking whether he should regret his
"seedtime" makes clear the source of his self-examination: his reproduction years, his youth. In other words, did he waste those fertile
years? This illuminates the comment of
having a daughter "young enough" to be his granddaughter. Note, too, that he didn't
say he was "old enough" to be her grandfather, but that she was
"young enough" etc. The method
seems a Freudian avoidance or denial of age by reversing the image to
"young" by not saying "old enough."
But, the speaker doesn't
seem to be just asking about the way he spent his fertile years, but he
questions whether his youth was squandered.
He begins to recall an incident from his past in stanza 2. Curiously, of the approximately twenty years
of his reproductive life now spent, he reflects on just one year. In some way, this year must have a special
convergence with his present life. When
recounting who he was then, he uses the same self-deprecating tone he used
before. He was a "fire-breathing
Catholic C.O." He made his
"manic statement, telling off the state and
president." Instead of his actions
providing a change or having some kind of positive effect, he merely spends a
year in jail. His efforts were
unproductive because his feelings and actions were excessive and
fanatical. His beliefs weren't the result of strong conviction, rather precipitated
by something beyond his control. He
tells us that he "was so out of things, [he] never heard/of the Jehovah's
Witnesses." The phrase "so out
of things" provides a clue that his mind may not have been stable then,
which was responsible for his mania and "fire-breathing"
Catholicism. When the fire went out of
his Catholicism and the mania subsided, what convictions was
he left with then?
The comment, "yammer[ing] metaphysics with Abramowitz," indicates he was
searching to explain existence then, just as he is now. He appears to feel no closer to answers now
than he was then. He questions now,
"What's to be in the future? Will
it be more of the same?" If his
seedtime wasn't productive, can he expect his
declining years to be any better? The
memory of the lobotomized Lepke, the Czar of
"Murder Incorporated," now looms over him.
Lepke's image, at this point in
the speaker's life, takes on new meaning.
At the time the speaker met Lepke, the
speaker's future, no doubt, appeared rosier than Lepke's. After all, Lepke
was on his way to the electric chair.
The speaker was young then with his life ahead of him. Lepke had nothing
but death ahead of him. Worse yet, there
was a specific time, place, and method. Lepke's lobotomy, though, allowed him to live his remaining
days calm and placid, without the ability to look back on his life and make
painful appraisals. The description of Lepke makes this clear.
He "drift[s] in a sheepish calm" and "dawdl[es]
off to his little segregated cell full/of things forbidden the common
man." Now the memory evokes an
envious quality about Lepke's fate that he couldn't see then:
that Lepke is incapable of
"agonizing" over painful reappraisals. "The electric chair---/hang[s] like an
oasis in his air/of lost connections. . . . " It's the uncertainty
of the future and the unstable past which makes the speaker uneasy. We learn now how this particular part of his
past converges with his present.
By the end of the poem, the speaker has
exposed the most painful part of his inner self to the reader. Questioning the value of one's life is a
serious and intensely personal matter.
It confirms our assessment earlier of his sincerity. He presents himself to the reader in all his
"un"glory, in candor and honesty. Many other clues in this poem lie yet unexplicated in this paper.
But, I hope to show, at least, the predominate
sentiments, revealing enough examples to substantiate my view.
There's no doubt that this poem
is confessional, and the voice of the speaker is the voice of the poet. Even without the biographical information
available to confirm this, a close reading will reveal it.