Alright so I read this 3 times. First I just read it, second I read it out loud(which the people I was in the library study room with appreciated) and the third time I just tried reading it again and I can honestly tell you I do not understand it. I don't even have any specific questions because I don't understand any of it to ask questions about!
I definitely got something about people using a lot of drugs, some musicians, artists, and psychiatric patients and hospitals. I hope that's a good enough summary to show I read it because that's honestly all I can give you.
Any help??
The psychiatric wards and drugs can be pointed towards military veterans because showing weakness isn't okay so they didn't come out and say anything. They were seen as crazy and needed all of this help.
ReplyDeleteHe was committed and experienced electroshock therapy. The belief is the blank slate theory in that if you shock the mind it will go completely blank and you start over. He feels that this is an abusive treatment, especially because if you want to wipe their mind because they're not "normal."
There are many different types of drugs talked about. The author is experimenting with drugs and that is aware throughout the poem. This seems to be a backlash to the nuclear family, outside the norm. If everyone wants to be normal why do people backlash against society?
An idea that my group had was that from the first few lines we thought that maybe he(the author) and Carl were some of the best minds of the generation that had been destroyed. They thought that they were destroyed by drugs and the psychiatric hospital doing electroshock therapy.
ReplyDeleteWe also thought that maybe the poem is so chaotic and confusing because it was after he had the electroshock therapy and his brain was jumbled. It's not supposed to make sense, he wants you to question the actions that we're all taking and showing what "normal" people are doing to those who aren't.