All
poems have similarities and differences. Whatever poem is read, there's always
something a reader can compare one poem to another poem. These comparisons may
be thematic, structural, or subject matter. There are more possible comparisons
that can be made. Reading the poems for my English 1302 class made me realize
similar themes between two or more poems. The poems "Waiting for My
Clothes" by Leanne O'Sullivan, and "The Russian Greatcoat" by
Theodore Deppe are both similar in a sense that both poems involve clothes or
clothing, and narrators lost in thoughts. However, they are different in a
sense that O'Sullivan's poem is surreal compared to Deppe's poem, which is
realistic.
The
poem "Waiting for My Clothes" is in the point of view of a girl in a
waiting room, possibly in a mental institute. She is anxious because her
journal is now in the hands of strangers. Her whole life is written in private
paper, and there is a great risk of it being unraveled by strangers. The
narrator even thinks that the doctors might ask, "Who is this girl that is
speaking?" (O' Sullivan 26). However, her daydream is interrupted as soon
as her clothes are returned to her thus wringing her back to the real world.
The narrator's thoughts are surrealistic. She describes how she thinks the
doctors think of her, holding her "the way you would hold a baby"
(16), and examining her life through her journal. The narrator also feels like,
as her journal is opened and read, she feels herself "fall open or
apart" (24), which ties in to her thoughts of someone opening her up and
taking her soul from her. All of this surreal thoughts might just be in her
mind, but it might be happening inside closed doors as "behind the door,
nothing is said" (31). This might mean that the doctors are quietly
reading her journal, and once they finish reading it, they decide to return her
clothes, which brings the narrator back into reality.
In
the poem "The Russian Greatcoat", a man is probably having a vacation
with his family, and while enjoying his time watching his children play in the
water and keeping his sleeping wife company, he begins to be lost in thoughts.
He begins remembering a time in his life when he was probably still unmarried.
He remembers a former lover, who demanded him to throw away his "five
dollar 'Russian greatcoat'" (Deppe 7). His former lover didn't give any
explanations, and he didn't ask for any explanations and simply did what he was
told and threw away his coat off of a bridge. While the narrator's thoughts in
"Waiting for My Clothes" are surreal, the thoughts of the narrator in
"The Russian Greatcoat" are realistic. Also, unlike the clothes in
O'Sullivan's poem, the greatcoat in Deppe's poem serves as an invitation into
thinking rather than bringing back the narrator into reality, because of how
his thoughts involves this piece of clothing. The author didn't use language
that may seem surreal to describe his thoughts, but he puts in detail in
describing the memory. He describes how his "man-sized coat fell / in slow
motion" (10-11). He also remembers he shared a cigarette with his former
lover in that memory. He even remembers their entrance to the city, possibly
they were walking together, and sharing a "thin black coat" (16)
around their shoulders. Although the narrator claims he can forget about the
memory for weeks, the memory is clearly a significant thing in his life for how
he describes the memory in such detail, even the way in which his Russian
greatcoat fell down off a bridge.
With
all things considered, both poems may have their share of differences in the
way they are written, but both involve narrators with some type of thought
while staying in a place. The narrator's thoughts in "Waiting for My
Clothes," are more surreal than realistic, probably because of the effect
of her anxiety about her journal being taken away from her, and which the
doctors might have read. In "The Russian Greatcoat," however, the
narrator recalls a memory so his thoughts are more realistic because his
thoughts actually happened in the past, whereas compared to the narrator in
O'Sullivan's poem, the narrator's thought might all just be in her head. Both
poems also have something to do with clothing. All in all, these poems show how
a person can be lost in thoughts, be it surreal and fantastical, or realistic.
They also show how something like a piece of clothing can bring someone back to
reality or invite someone into recalling a memory.
