Tocqueville

Tocqueville is not like any other poem I have ever read before. I've read poems in the past with multiple meanings, different narrators, and hidden messages, but this one takes the cake. The endless possibilities are mind blowing after reading this poem because you are never quite sure which road to take. Everything seems to be so interconnected in one way or another that it almost sets you up to pick up all these different points of view and different meanings. This seems to be multiple poems hidden within each other, that also connect to a bigger idea while also having their own smaller picture.

One aspect that I questioned while reading this poem was how many different narrators had input throughout the reading. "I am 18, married with 3 children" (Pg 38) "I am 22 years old" (Pg 40) " I am 24 and have four children" (Pg 28) The reason these three passages stood out to me was because they almost seemed to be new introductions of narrators. Two of the three introductions mentioned some type of children or marriage with the speaker. However, one of them did not and it was odd to me that the one that didn't was the middle age and not either the first or last introduction. I also tried to compare the different introductions for any contradicting information that would lead the reader to believe that someone else was speaking but all three did not conflict with each other in any way. Another aspect I thought was very interesting was that the ages revealed in the introductions did not come in chronological order. In fact the ages revealed was in the order of oldest, youngest, and then middle.

Another clue that lead me to believe that there are multiple speakers was the fact that the poem contained multiple re-occurring themes spread out through the poem. This included war, a murdered child, the speakers wife, and the idea of portraying impressions of a certain people or idea. The speaker would almost jump back and forth from these different themes and switch his voice when speaking about them. This could be a result of different time frames in the speakers life or represent some kind of aspect the narrator is trying to get across to the reader. This was discussed in class that the poems were placed in this order to get the reader to see how ideas are portrayed to us in the news or to give the wrong impression to people about a certain topic.