sunday morning
In Wallace Steven's poem, "Sunday Morning" the idea of religion as it relates to reality is explored through the mind of the older lady. It is not through the older lady's religious voice, but the voice of Atheism, in her mind, that the poem is narrated. The poem is a discussion, a debate within her head, between the older lady's atheist voice and her religious voice on the perception of divinity. Her atheist voice questions religion, in which a problem of faith in the world is shown. It is shown through the older lady's atheist thoughts that those who believe in creeds that are not from an immediate perception of the visible world are living in illusion, and this illusion can make them unhappy. Through this atheistic ideal, religion is a form of illusion based on what is not visible and real. Death is shown as an absolute of human existence, and that the knowledge that death ends all finally, stimulating the awareness of beauty. Shown through the older lady's atheist thoughts, the answer to this question is shown. In her meditation, it is shown that human's should accept this condition and shed the illusion of religion and in this acceptance man will free them to love the world around them, and find paradise her on earth
It is pigeons, in the evening, that slide from the sky, not angels or gods, and day ends as life ends, in darkness. Through the atheist voice, the question is posed as to wither or not the old lady lacks of imagination sufficient to fill the sky with heaven, "And shall the earth / Seem all the paradise that we shall know" (Stevens, 6). This conversation, the mediation within the old lady's head, is where atheism is shown as having concrete merit and worthy of praise. The religious voice cannot believe in this joy because it is momentary, symbolically shown through their migration. There can be no beauty, shown through the atheist voice, in paradise because death is the precondition for the knowledge of beauty. Humans live on earth and are of the earth; about us earth offers its majesty and beauty and power. Within the atheist voice's language, the question of allegiance towards a dead man is posed. 'I am conent when wakened birds,Before they fly, test the realityOf misty fields, by their sweet questiongs;But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields,Return no more, where, then, is paradise?'(Stevens, 6)There are moments, the religious voice questions, as when in early morning the birds sing in their flight over misty fields that she feels content with earthly atheism. Symbolically, her dreams of the "old catastrophe" represent Christ's death, and the thoughts of her own death motivate her to think about her religious beliefs. Without the knowledge that all things are to be obliterated, man would not see the beauty of life. By giving the atheist voice the duty narration and the religious voice a duty of question tradition roles are switched. The older lady has not, however, shaken the hold of those religious doctrines in which she is familiar with. This poem serves as an example of the romantic atheist doctrine being questioned through a traditional religious debate. In Paradise, everything is like earth, but static, and unchanging.
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Acceptance Essays
