Heamant Dasrat
12/14/17
Prof. Lakoff
English 2850
Final Paper
Sometimes, works of literature can have similar themes and motifs even if they were written in different times and different cultures. The poem “The Cry of the Children,” by Elizabeth Browning and the text “The Tattooer” by Tanizaki Junichiro and display raw themes of power, abuse, control, oppression, activism, identity, and the search for freedom. These themes fall under an overlying theme of consumption whether if its physically, mentally, or spiritually. Thus, these writers convey their themes in various literary devices.
Elizabeth Browning The Cry of Children
The Victorian Age was a time of dark disparities between the poor and the middle and upper classes. Victorians themselves were often characterized by the double moral standards they followed. They were imitating good ethics, but were also involved in corruption. When government investigations into child labor revealed the rampant exploitation of children, Browning decided to respond with the poem, “The Cry of the Children.” By an extensive use in symbolism, the author shows the accusation of misery unto the children. The poem's aim is to inform and educate her audience to no longer be silent but to be activists to prevent such inhumane acts.
The poem opens with a feeling pure grief and gloom. Thus, Browning directly plunges the reader to the sad aura of the children. For instance, “They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, / and that cannot stop their tears And that cannot stop their tears.” (Browning , 423). By comparing the children to the other youngsters, Browning characterizes the youngsters to be innocent and to play around in fields, “The young fawns are playing with the shadows” (TCC 7). Children should be happy and enjoy their youth but sadly they cannot, instead, they are “weeping bitterly" (Browning, 423). Thus, Browning blames the English government with the horrid conditions, because they don’t care about why these children are in sorrow. Strange enough, the symbolism of death is viewed as positive to the children. This is so because, when the children talk about Alice, “Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen like a snowball in the rime… Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking Death in life, as best to have…” (Browning (424). Thus, the children say they would be better off if they would be dead. The children in the poem also go on to describe Alice's grave: The description of the grave even illustrates that when children pass away; their bodies are not taken away for proper burial. Instead, these are being left behind and from time, as the skin gets hard, it gets covered by dust and dirt, looking like a snowball.
The children pray for help but nothing seems to be going in their way. They repeatedly question their faith as they say, “ ‘But no!’ says the children, weeping faster, ‘He is speechless as a stone…’ We look up to God, but tears have made us blind.” (Browning, 424).. The children hope that by being very religious and making sure to keep praying to God, one day God will put an end to all of their misery. They would have faith in God, “but grief has made [them] unbelieving” (Browning, 425). In the second to last stanza, Browning uses effective techniques of varying pictures to show the children's health conditions, being severely damaged by the labor and the long hours of work in the mines and factories.
Though being children, their innocent recounts as small but direct as they are, have taught them to go through grief but not gain knowledge, as it is with age that one becomes more efficient and proficient. The children feel discouraged and are aware that they wont get out of their situation even if death doesn’t free them. Their constant weeping is being ignored, which is hardly the sort of thing one would expect from a loving God.
Tanizaki Junichiro, “The Tattooer”
Tanizaki Junichiro’s story, “The Tattooer” begins with the narrator illustrating the ancient art of tattooing. He describes that Japanese men, got tattoos in order to please their upper class audiences and improve and enhance their beauty and appearance. This story is about a young tattoo artist named Seikichi who apprenticed as an ukiyoye painter as a youth but fell in social status and became a very famous tattoo artist. For years, Seikichi mastered his tattoo artistry on many clients even though they were very painful to go through. To him they were his body painting boards which came in all different shapes and sizes. However, his greed made him yearned for something more, he wanted the perfect canvas to put his masterpiece on. Then one day while walking past a restaurant, he saw a part of a beautiful woman’s foot and fell wildly in love with her. Some days later, the beautiful woman appeared at his door carrying a package from one of Seikichi’s friends. (Junichiro, 81). He gazed at her beauty, she had the facial features that he desired, and her body was the perfect canvas he wanted to paint his greatest masterpiece on. However, the young woman did not share in his dreams and was frightened by his advancing gestures. (Junichiro, 81). As much as he tried to convince her, she still kept on refusing his offer to be his greatest work of art. So going to extreme measures, Seikichi drugged the young woman and enslaved her. (Junichiro, 83).
The next morning Seikichi started his masterpiece on the sleeping woman. He did not stop until he finished his work of art. After Seikichi ended, the woman began to move around, the spider that Seikichi tattooed on the woman’s back also was moving as she did. Later, the woman emerged from the room majestically dressed. Seikichi was amazed at what he saw he described as beautiful. However, Seikichi requested to see the tattoo one more time. The woman then turned around and removed her kimono. A ray of sunlight from the window shone on the spider drawn on her back, and it was then engulfed in flames (Junichiro, 84).
The relationship between Seikichi and the young woman was highly important. Only at the end of the tale does the narrator reveal that she has some sort of a streak of being single or robably a virgin. She does tell Seikichi several times that she doesn’t want to be his masterpiece but he refuses to listen as he is addicted to her, “…You must stay—I will make you a real beauty” (Junichiro, 81). Junichiro wants the readers to think about the spider tattoo as a form of irony that is about to come for the artist and the beautiful woman. For instance, some female spiders can be deadly and highly venomous arachnids that end up eating the smaller male after mating. Since Seikichi tattooed a spider to the back of a female, it would explain why the woman then took on the behaviors of that spider. Physically they did not mate, but as Seikichi built relationships by tattooing men he built relationship by tattooing the girl which almost makes it like a weird mating ritual between the artist and his canvas which is also his girl. Also, taking the form of the spider, she obviously trapped him in a web of lust and greed and decided to make him be destroyed. The author wanted his readers to understand Seikichi’s way of thinking and make sense of the inner social behaviors of an artist’s mind. By doing this, Tanizaki shows to his readers how art affects an artist and how the greed, love and addiction of art can lead to a man’s destruction.
Both stories show that power, abuse, control, oppression, activism, identity, and the search for freedom are in them. For instance in Brownings poem, power and abuse are showed when the bosses and owners of the facotries control and subject the children to harder working conditions. They are oppressed as they are innocent and don’t have the ability to speak for themselves as nobody would believe their story. They are fighting for their identity as they contemplate suicide and how to end their life since they don’t value themselves as other well off kids do. They search and long for freedom as they pray to God relentlessly to help them get out of their misery. In Junichiro’s story, Seikichi uses power and abuse to pleasure himself as he subjects his clients to painful tattoos. He finds joy in his pan he brings as he his an oppressor. His identity and search for freedom are however questioned as when he tries to tattoo a women and she turns back on him. His pain and greed have actually brought him misery as he is trying to find that one perfect canvas. Both stories show the protagonist(s) going through physical, mental and emotional/spiritual pain. For example, in Brownings poem the kids are subject to hard labor (physical), they don’t have an education (mental), and they contemplate on suicide and try to pray to God to be in a better state in where they are at. In Tanizaki’s work, Sekichi puts people through pain as he tattoos people and makes them bloody and puts his clients in agony (painful), he goes wildly crazy for the women he thinks is going to be his masterpiece and he tries to persuade his clients that he is doing the right thing and for them to accept the pain (mental), and when the woman becomes engulfed her spirit affects Sekichi as he tries to gain her back (spiritual/emotional). Also, both texts show a form of consumption. For example, in Browning’s poem the children are consumed in trying to find a better life while their bosses are consumed to overworking the kids and gaining more money. In Tanizaki’s text, Sekichi is consumed with trying to get the girl to be tattooed by him, however when he does get to tattoo her the pain he caused on so much people gets brought on to him in return.
As you can see, both authors use literary devices in their works to showcase their theme or motif in the text. The poem “The Cry of the Children,” by Elizabeth Browning and the text “The Tattooer” by Tanizaki Junichiro both show the themes of power, abuse, control, oppression, activism, identity, and the search for freedom. These sub themes fall under the greater themes of physical, emotional, and mental distress/abuse as well as symbolic uses to display consumption. As a result, these authors show their audience how sometimes art can be hostile and lead to greed and addiction ( “The Tatooer”) but it can also be used to inform and bring awareness to a cause (The Crying of the Children) .