Sunday, September 25, 2011
Man of Steel
Wow! This was a terrific story. I'm still digesting it, but thinking of themes swirling around the intertwined subjects of love and illusion. Love as illusion, love as real, escaping the mundane in favor of illusion. How can one truly know if love is real or illusion? Were father and son opposite sides of that coin, who found each other on a bridge in the middle? Does redemption come with reconciling the illusion and the mundane? Definite links to "Midsummer Night's Dream," with these themes and I will return with lesson ideas when I have stewed over this richness a while longer. Thanks, Tim, for a great story!
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As I think more about the above themes and the family in "Man of Steel," the following poem on page xix of same book addresses the illusion/real issues surrounding love, in relation to the mother who fled and the father who struggled to hold his son in reality:
ReplyDeleteSpeaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
This idea of nobility in the mundane, when juxtaposed with dreams and illusion as beacons of escape, is pithy discussion material.
I was going to make my own post, but then saw that you already had made this. On a quick aside, I finally have my computer back!!! I can continue with my regularly schedule blogging now.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this short story reminded me of something Borges might write. There were times when I was wondering if I fully grasped what was going on. I mean, the relationship between the father and the boy was unhealthy at best.. yet I kept thinking that they were two very similar individuals, it just was that Revie embraced the things that the father did not. I kind of felt that the son was stronger than the father... yet Revie annoyed me at times.
Anyway, connections to Midsummer would be exactly what you said, Claudia.... the illusions of love and reality