9.Stanley
Kunitz
The Layers
Essay: “The Layers” is all about
transformations. Elucidate.
2.Discuss the poem as a metaphor of the journey of life
3.”The Layers” celebrate the insight that man gains as he carries on
with his life. Discuss
Stanley
Kunitz is a great American poet. His childhood was traumatic with his father’s
death, penury, his mother’s marriage and the death of his step father. His
father had committed suicide on being bankrupt six weeks before his birth.
Stanley worked as a butcher’s assistant. Human life is an accumulation of many
different experiences that a person acquired in his different stages of life.
Therefore “The Layers” is a metaphor of human life.
Stanley Kunitz’ famous poem “The Layers” is
about the journey of human life. “Live in the layers, not on the litter” is the
theme of the poem. It is written in free verse in a single stanza. Life is full
of pains and sorrows and joys with troubles and hurdles on the path of life. One must go through these layers of life. The narrator
says that he has walked through many stages of life. He lived and worked for
others and on some stages of life he
lived and worked for himself. He has acquired all his friends with love and
affection. But all these phases of life gave him a lot of experiences, bitter
and sweet. These experiences have enriched his life and greatly transformed him
into a different person. Therefore he is not what he was many years ago. He is
not an young man today. He is getting old. But his basic principles of life have not been changed.
The narrator sees the milestones of his life getting
reduced toward the horizon. Experiences have transformed him and he has become
a better person with wisdom to face life with all its problems and
uncertainties. Many of intimate friends have passed away and the narrator is
getting lonely and old. Past memories
often make him sad and the memory of his
friends bitterly stings his face. But he knows well that “one should not live
on the litter but live in the layers”. Litter means the dustbin of old
memories. One should live in the layers because life is a bundle of layers or
changes. Change is essential for the progress of life. Human life is a long
journey and we have to pass through many changes.
Whenever the narrator faces difficulties and
problems, a heavenly voice guides him through the right path of life. The voice
tells him “Live in the layers, not on the litter”. The heavenly voice tells him
to go forward with hope and optimism. And he is still carrying on life with his
changes.
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