Автор: Алена Антюшко. Структурно-функциональные аспекты самоидентификации К.В. Дэвис на материале сборника «Between Storms». Психологический уровень самоидентификация К. В. Дэвис
(Бурятский государственный университет, научный руководитель работы канд. филол. наук Е. Баяртуева)
Психологический уровень самоидентификация К. В. Дэвис
Психологическая идентификация поэтессы связана с эмоциональной оценкой отражаемой действительности, с мироощущением в текущий период времени.
Частная жизнь, отраженная в стихотворениях Pairing the Animals, The Chair, Lucy Bakewell Auduborn Sets the Record Straight, демонстрирует образцы психологической самоидентификации. Следует отметить, что часто эта тема в произведениях поэтессы раскрывается с негативной позиции, она (частная жизнь), как правило, неудавшаяся, несостоявшаяся, или приближается к своему завершению. Это мы видим в стихотворении Pairing the Animals («Who to match with a woman who aches with longing?»), или в The Chair («If we look hard enough, will we find
remnants of a marriage scattered in the gutter?»). Несколько стихотворений посвящено драме семейной жизни, где можно наблюдать утверждение «я — одинокая»: в With No Definite End («Тhen it was over, though there was no definite end. A man walks away in a movie and does not him around, even when his fedora lifts from his head, sailing to the pavement behind him»), или в A Scattering of Stones («I pushed open the back gate, as foolish as any heroine… I slip on the brocaded gown, let down my hair, but he does not return»).
Стихотворение Bruges демонстрирует самоидентификацию поэтессы «я — странник»; в этом стихотворении тема религии и еврейства тесно связана с темой эмиграции, описанием жизненных трудностей, связанных с ней. С первых строк стихотворения имеет место противопоставление старинного города, в котором оказывается семья лирической героини, с его причудливой архитектурой и те сложности, которые приходится претерпевать ее семье в эмиграции: «We moved to Europe after the war opposite the wave of migration that thrust the lucky ones onto boatsbound for Ellis Island.»
В других произведениях поэтесса весьма откровенно показывает читателю эпизоды непростого детства ребенка, а также детства его родителей, перенося лирическую героиню произведения в категорию «я – несчастный ребенок».
Имея опыт определенного семейного прошлого, автор пишет о трудностях, которые претерпевает семья в поисках достойной жизни. Эта проблема отражена в произведениях Statue, Laundromat, Leonard Bernstein Speaks to Me, Cobbler from Erevan. В стихотворении Statue мы находим яркие картины описания трудностей, с которыми сталкивается семья лирической героини, находясь в эмиграции: «My mother’s family escaped, while others not so fortunate». Это, например, обиды унижения от местных жителей: «My father beaten up by Irish boys in Brooklyn walking to school», и плохая еда: «I hated that food. I wanted white bread so soft it stuck to the roof of the mouth crusts cut off, dignified».
В стихотворениях Statue и Guy Fawkes Day рассказ ведется от имени поэтессы. Она повествует об адаптации к жизни в другом городе и о детстве в Лос-Анджелесе. Стихотворения этой тематики построены на ассоциативных переходах исторических воспоминаний. Эти ассоциации располагаются столь естественным и поэтическим образом, что в конечном итоге создают в воображении читателя многосодержательный, многозначимый образ детства. Здесь очень важное место занимают исторические моменты — воспоминания.
В стихотворении Statue описание трудностей чередуются с описаниями статуи Иисуса Христа, который молится и словно наблюдает за сложностями, встречающиеся в семье героини: «On a corner of Pico Blvd stands a statue of Christ palms facing up in supplication. He has not stirred the thirty years I have watched him».
ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ
Pairing the Animals
Watching my cats tumble
like the fury of a riptide,
I know the usual pairings would never work.
The lions would tear each other to strips of rag,
the mourning doves collapse
in a puddle of grief.
We must start again with the unlikely:
panther with possum, for suspicion binds stronger
than love.
Canadian goose with elk.
Both are prepared
for arduous journey.
Who to match
with a woman who aches
with longing?
She stands by the window,
strokes the splintering sill of the cavernous ark,
staring across the water.
The Chair
When its leg broke,
my husband said the chair had to go.
Sent from the kitchen table
before the meal was served
like a child banished for bad behavior.
And what of other discarded objects?
An electric fan on the side of the road.
A stove stripped for parts.
If we look hard enough, will we find
remnants of a marriage scattered in the gutter?
As the fire raced down the hillside behind his house,
my friend fled, taking nothing.
Later, back home, lucky—his house was still standing,
though covered now in soot, front windows blown out —
he considered what he should have grabbed:
the briefcase with passports nestled into the side pocket;
the photo of his father leaning against the archway
of their Cairo home with a cigarette in his hand.
He’d always meant to tell his father to quit.
Lucy Bakewell Audubon
Sets the record Straight
It was fair my father at first did not
release me to marry our young neighbor from France.
After he fell into a creek and contracted fever,
I nursed John James Audubon back to health.
Then he returned to Europe to ask for his own father’s blessing.
He studied the art of taxidermy, stuffed snakes and opossums.
I too love the wilds of this country, from the Kentucky hills
to the western fringes with their bonanza pines and bristeberry.
After John returned home to start a general store, we married.
The following year, the first of our two sons was born.
This started the bad spell: I lost two baby girls, Lucy and Rose.
Can a mother ever recover the loss of her babies?
Then the rats ate John’s drawings, over two hundred of them.
I worked as a chambermaid, tutored plantation girls.
I knew what I had to do.
My husband set sail for England in 1826 and stayed three years.
Dressed in moccasins, a tomahawk hanging from his belt,
he was the darling of the Continent.
With his life-sized drawings of birds and tales of Indians,
he regaled his hosts in drawing rooms, sold portraits
of young ladies for five dollars apiece.
I begrudge him none of this.
But oh I waited for an invitation to join him!
And oh I wait for his acknowledgment still!
With No definite end
Тhen it was over, though there was no definite end.
A man walks away in a movie and
does not him around, even when his fedora
lifts from his head, sailing to the pavement behind him.
A man sends her an elaborate box hinged by two brass butterflies
with painted vines winding drunkenly around the sides.
Their primary colors at odds with the winter of its making.
Her roommate insists she send the gift back.
The world shrinks to a distillation of sound—
the predawn lament of the mourning dove.
A woman shuts the window,
though the cries continue to reach her.
After decades there is much to say, though both parties
are weighted down by too many footnotes.
She has watched many snowfalls from behind glass.
Even on the telephone a father’s words can strangle a son.
The sun hisses at its rapid sinking into the sea.
Scattering of stones
In the shadow of bombed-out windows, crumbling stairs,
I was sucked into the wind tunnel of the Brothers Grimm,
where an old woman with an outstretched palm piled
with striped candies enticed just such a girl as I.
The stepsisters who hacked off their heels,
blood dripping on the floorboards
as they hobbled toward the court messenger
to squeeze into the glass slipper.
Warning signs I knew, yet ignored years later.
When the phone rang, a man’s satin voice beckoned.
As if in a trance, I succumbed; followed
the breadcrumbs to his house.
I pushed open the back gate, as foolish as any heroine.
A desolate garden is more seductive than a fertile one.
Such possibilities ripe for invention!
I closed my eyes and the sad stubble of lawn
turned brilliant with lampposts of daisies.
A scattering of stones framed the border.
Spikes of blue salvia enough to hold onto,
even a pond with a golden fish to predict the future.
Sometimes we get what we wish for.
This is always dangerous.
I slip on the brocaded gown,
let down my hair, but he does not return.
Bruges
An unusually clean city,
buildings historic, quaint.
But my memories are different.
We moved to Europe after the war
opposite the wave of migration
that thrust the lucky ones onto boats
bound for Ellis Island.
Like the itinerant Jews
of past generations, we too
wandered country to country.
Cities shrunk to postage stamp size.
A series of dingy hotel rooms.
A few months in Oslo, long enough
to start preschool, then on to Paris,
where my brother and I, hands held,
flew an inch off the ground
as my mother ran,
dragging us behind her
like a weak kite, ducking corners
as the Algerian riots engulfed the city.
She boiled everything in Athens,
so afraid I would dip again into illness,
no common language to discuss symptoms
with the doctors. I remained the sickly child.
Scum of burnt milk seeped into the mattress,
even the wool sweaters she bundled us in.
What made my father work for the Marshall Plan?
Some kind of strange repayment for survival?
Scars remained: a quiver in Papas chin
whenever the Soviet Union was mentioned,
how he refused to speak Russian, his mother tongue.
And the yahrzeit candles always burning
on the tiny kitchen counters as we moved around,
for my mother s side wasn’t so lucky.
Her grandfather refusing to leave Germany.
America wasn’t religious enough, he said.
Statue
On a corner of Pico Blvd.
stands a statue of Christ
palms facing up in supplication.
He has not stirred
the thirty years I have watched him.
What does he want?
I was taught to be afraid.
My mother s family escaped,
while others not so fortunate.
My father beaten up
by Irish boys in Brooklyn
walking to school.
Why did we children need to hear
these stories at the dinner table
between bowls of borscht I sloshed
to the table and platters of kasha
with spikes of mushrooms.
I hated that food.
I wanted white bread so soft
it stuck to the roof of the mouth
crusts cut off, dignified.
Not what was good for me,
dark grains to put on flesh.
Christ still refuses to move
from that intersection.
His hands must be so tired.
All those years, begging.
Laundromat
Nothing can brighten this laundromat,
not the fake ivy strung like a clothesline
across its middle, washers on one side,
dryers on the other, nor the framed
jigsaw puzzles under smeared glass.
Germanic villages with steepled churches
and quaint squares tucked sleepily
against the shards of mountains.
Tiles broken and missing, as if the
floor had hosted dance parties after the doors
were locked, the machines’ lids lowered.
The twirling stilettos wore it down.
In this giant room on the last Sunday of the year
Guatemalan grandmothers with impossibly
long braids stuff their clothes into the machines,
a locked determination on their faces,
one more obstacle to fight.
While their children watch cartoons,
squeezed into tiny apartments, as the men
drag home without finding work.
I look around, tail in contrast to the other women.
The washers and dryers chatter noisily,
firing up, shaking their hips, flinging wide their mouths.
Oh the stories they could tell,
If only someone would stop to listen.
Leonard Bernstein Speaks to Me
Ten p.m. I drag myself to the car.
Even the security booth is abandoned.
I slide in, check the backseat, lock the doors.
So dark I cannot fit the key into its hole.
The engine grumbles,
roused unhappily from its slumber.
On the radio a man lectures on the symphony.
It is Lennie, a voice I have blown since childhood.
Lennie, tell me more, that everything will turn around.
Money appear in my bank account, a discovered concerto.
Creditors dropped like a revised score.
The Largo waiting to catch me before I fall.
Let me understand how the world is larger than a symphony,
such intricate parts, the delight of a piccolo,
the torrent of kettledrum.
Let me follow your baton as you gather up the violins,
whip them into a crescendo, rein them in,
calm them, then fool them into submission.
Cobbler from Yerevan
We lean on either side of the chipped counter as he rotates my shoes.
Always enough and never he answers, though I’ve yet to ask a question.
He glances at the television, half expecting help.
Scraps of words tumble from his mouth in English and Russian.
I’m limping along, trying to keep up, but when
he lapses into default Armenian, he loses me.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, only that I listen as he pauses
to count his sorrows: the wait each Sunday at the prison,
his oldest son busted for drugs, so many years wasted.
If bed stayed in the old country, he’d be slapping worn-out shoes
with new soles made of salvaged tires.
His wife would prepare pilaf with fresh herbs, a little meat, strong mint tea to wash it down.
She’d squeeze shut her eyes to will her children home for;
Now the cobbler flicks his forehead, frowning
You can only look back for so long
Guy Fawkes Day
Berries snapped on the pyre and the flames erupted.
The bonfire full blast, yet men threw on more branches,
three steps forward, two paces back,
a dance form I could not name.
I didn’t know who Guy Fawkes was or
even the meaning of treason.
No one had bothered to explain these things to a child
newly arrived in a country full of mystery:
bangers and mash, elevenses, an English I did not recognize.
But flames already haunted me.
I had heard the whispered stories;
we had lost relatives in the war.
In my child’s mind, all incinerators burned,
so those back home were the same.
Though they appeared harmless, I knew
their bellies were crammed with secrets.
Even the curtains in my room conspired against me.
Profiles of burglars emerged from the stripes,
their faces all menace, eyes hooded.
Burrowing under the blankets was only temporary protection.
When we landed in England, I was ill-prepared
for that November night when my schoolmates
made a man, stuffing shirt and trousers of their fathers’ old clothes.
The men hoisted the effigy higher and higher.
Soon the tiger would catch on the moon, causing it
to lose its balance and tumble into the flames.
leaned back to squint in anticipation of the destruction.
With a grunt, the ropes slackened and Guy Fawkes dropped.
My palms burned all that year with gunpowder.