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(2014
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2014 #2a: Short Essay (Favorite Passage) |
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Victoria Webb
The Two Sisters
Anne Bradstreet, "The Flesh and the Spirit"
I chose this poem, “Flesh and Spirit, by Anne Bradstreet,
because of the fact that when I first read it, I instantly fell in love with it.
Bradstreet is known for her lovely lyrical domestic poems. From the poems I’ve
read by her, I can see that she writes her poems about her children, her life,
and her husband. If you read Bradstreet, you will feel a sense of happiness from
the writings; they are timeless poems that people may still be able to connect
to and still refer to today, such as the poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband”. I
read a few poems by Bradstreet in class and there seemed to be no objections to
the fact that her words are different from other women writers of the time that
had been previously discussed. She was a domestic woman who just so happened to
be education and literate. Her words are beautiful, and I was pleased to read a
poem that just so happened to step away from the life of a content domestic wife
and mother, and take a step into her mind and spirituality.
This poem, depicting her ideas of human nature, is one of the
few poems that I’ve read that seem very different from the main works I’ve read
by Bradstreet. While reading “Flesh and Spirit” I was blown away by her words.
In the first passage, she paints the image of this sad secret place she
describes as “by the banks of Lacrim flood”; we can assume she is grieving or
mourning loss. While in her secret place, she begins watching two “sisters”
bicker with one another. I enjoy the fact that she personifies the flesh and
spirit as sisters; she gives the two identities and actual forms, making it
easier for the reader to grasp and visualize.
While reading the poem, when Flesh speaks about the bounties
of Earth’s treasures, I could see the two sisters, one adorned in silks and
gold, and boasting about the treasures of the world, while the other was in
humble clothing disgusted by her boastful sister. Flesh tells her sister that
the Earth has more than enough beauty and objects to possess, while Spirit
argues and tells her that the treasures she holds so dear are trash in
comparison to the treasures that wait for her in heaven. You can imagine, while
reading her words:
Nor such like trash which Earth doth hold,
But Royal Robes I shall have on,
More glorious than the glist'ring Sun
Spirit is criticizing her sister for even beginning to think
that the Earth’s treasures could compare to the riches of Heaven.
Flesh defends her worldly possessions and
does not think of the future in heaven. I got the idea from the first lines of
the poem when Bradstreet writes:
I
heard two sisters reason on
Things that are past and things to come
Spirit is the future of the two sisters, she is preoccupied
by the destiny of the soul and where it will reside for eternity. She tries to
explain to her sister that what is now is not what is important. Flesh will die
and rot but the spirit will live on forever. Flesh is preoccupied by her present
and Spirit by her future.
The two bickering sisters is a great analogy
for human nature in conflict. I enjoyed reading this poem, and I have found
myself questioning it the more I read it. There is a bit of hypocrisy in the
Spirit’s words. She criticizes her sister for speaking highly of worldly items,
and yet describes her heaven with the same said items. Perhaps this is because
the human mind can only imagine riches and treasures as the ones found on Earth.
Since we cannot imagine beauty we’ve never seen, Spirit had to use the best
descriptions she could. By the end of the poem I had assumed that because of
Bradstreet’s puritan beliefs, along with the fact that Spirit had the longest
monologue as well as the last words, that she is the victor of the argument. I
think it would have been interesting to see a rebuttal from Flesh, but being
written at the time by a Puritan woman, I was pleased to read such an
interesting poem about what I feel is the psychological struggle of human
desires and spirituality.
