{"id":2921,"date":"2023-11-26T23:17:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T04:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2921"},"modified":"2023-11-26T23:17:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T04:17:39","slug":"the-duality-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2023\/11\/26\/the-duality-of-it-all\/","title":{"rendered":"The Duality of It All"},"content":{"rendered":"

(No, shockingly this isn’t about Jekyll and\u00a0Hyde)<\/em><\/p>\n

Christina Rossetti\u2019s <\/span>The World<\/span><\/i> encapsulates the push and pull of ones mentality from good to evil and restraint to desire. We feel this specific duality expressed through Rossetti\u2019s choice of words and structure of the poem. It begins with \u201cBy day she woos me\u201d the phrase \u2018by day\u2019 repeats three times and is met with a contradicting \u2018but\u2019 twice. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy day she woos me, soft, exceeding fair:<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 But all night as the moon so changeth she;\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy day she wooes me to the outer air,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 But through the night, a beast she grins at me,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This allows us to recognize a\u00a0clear temporal difference between the\u00a0subjects state of being in the night versus the day, while also implying that this change of persona happens multiple times. The \u201cripe fruits\u201d and \u201csweet flowers\u201d sound appealing on their own but when met with language like \u201cA very monster void of love and prayer\u201d it\u2019s clear that these kinder adjectives are used to mask an ugly truth that hides behind life’s temptations. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy day she stands a lie: by night she stands<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 In all the naked horror of the truth\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The sweetness is the lie, and the truth is something dark within us all whether it is a wanting or craving for more out of life or a desire for something perhaps…taboo. Yet no matter how appealing this <\/span>beast<\/span><\/i> is, it is not something to be met with or yearned for. Which is clear in these two lines:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLoathsome and foul with hideous leprosy<\/span>
\nAnd subtle serpents gliding in her hair.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The serpents in the hair call upon the imagery of Medusa who will turn onlookers into stone when stared in the eye. This mysterious monsterous woman described in Rossetti\u2019s poem seems to be unattainable, desired, rejected and feared all at once, truly capturing divisions of the mind and possible fears of ourselves. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(No, shockingly this isn’t about Jekyll and\u00a0Hyde) Christina Rossetti\u2019s The World encapsulates the push and pull of ones mentality from good to evil and restraint to desire. We feel this specific duality expressed through Rossetti\u2019s choice of words and structure of the poem. It begins with \u201cBy day she woos me\u201d the phrase \u2018by day\u2019 … Continue reading The Duality of It All<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}