English Speech
Radio show Faith and Doubt
Good morning/afternoon everyone, my name is Erin. To start with I'd like to thank you for inviting me to speak on your radio program. As you are aware we are currently talking on the subject of faith and doubt. Today we will be looking at how an adverse human experience can shake or even shatter a person’s faith. We will be doing that by looking at two poems the first of which will be Natures questioning by Thomas Hardy and the second will be Casimir Pulaski day by Sufjan Stevens.
The first poem was written by a Christian man after his wife died; this poem is a result of him trying to work out why we are here, what had happened and why god would let such terrible things happen. The second poem is actually a song about a young girl who had cancer of the bone better known as leukaemia. In this song her and her boyfriend are Christians at the beginning but by the end of the song the boyfriend believes god is just a horrible thing that and I quote “takes and he takes and he takes”.
We can see throughout the poem Natures Questioning how a Christian man’s faith is shaken and shattered. The first three stanzas of this seven stanza poem are describing how this man feels; he does this by using imagery and similes. The first three lines are imagery and they say “when I look forth at a drawing pool, field, flock and lonely tree all seem to gaze at me”. This means that when he looks out his window instead of him looking out at a beautiful site it seems to him that they are all staring at him. This is followed up by a simile; “like chasing children sitting silent in a school.” That line also uses alliteration. The next two stanzas are explaining these children in the school. It explains how these children are miserable and are following their masters and the final line of the third stanza is “we wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!” that line is the poet asking why are we alive, what is the point of our existence.
The next three stanzas are his ideas as to why we are here. His first idea is; “has some vast imbecility, mighty to build and blend but impotent to tend, framed us in a jest and left us now to hazardry.” These lines of the poem is him saying has some extremely stupid idiot great enough to create us but not great enough to look after us brought us here as a joke and left us here to live by chance. He then moves on to another idea “or are we live remains of godhead dying downwards brain and eye now gone.” This put forward the idea that we were part of some great gods plan but now the plan and the god is failing and we are just the left over’s left here to live a life not worth living. He continues like this coming up with ideas of why we exist but then immediately dismissing them and moving on to a new idea.
After going through many ideas about why we are here he comes to the final stanza where he says “thus things around, no answers I” this is him deciding that he has no answers as to why we are here there is no god and the final line is “and life and death are neighbours nigh” and that is him saying if we live we are just waiting to die. At this point his faith is shattered all because of an adverse human experience.
The second poem Casimir Pulaski Day shows how a young man’s faith is shattered as his girl friend dies of leukaemia. This poem starts when he first finds out his girlfriend has leukaemia the first stanza says “goldenrod and 4-H stone, the thing I bought you when I found you had cancer of the bone.” Goldenrod and the 4-H stone are gifts that he gave to his girl friend when they found out she had cancer. Goldenrod is just a flower. 4-H is a farming club for kids, similar to Boy Scouts, the stone is something he made for her in 4-H. The 4-H symbol is the four leaf clover the symbol of luck. Throughout the poem the line “all the glory that the lord has made” is used quite often this ids referring to the girl and how beautiful she is. It tells us that this man did believe in god and was completely in love with his glorious work. The forth stanza of this poem is “Tuesday night at bible study we lift our hands and pray over your body but nothing ever happens.” This is when he first thinks that god isn’t as great as he thought he was; he starts to wonder why god would let such a horrible thing happen to such a lovely girl and why he won’t fix it when he is asked.
In the middle the middle of the poem there is a couple of stanzas with movement similar to this stanza, “all the glory when you ran outside with your shirt untucked and your shoes untied.” These stanzas have a running rhythm to them and it symbolises the cancer running through her body out of control and taking over.
In the eleventh stanza when the girl dies the man loses faith and feels like all is lost. “In the morning when you finally go the nurse comes in with her head hug low and the cardinal hits the window.” This means that when she dies and he gets the news all hope is lost and the cardinal hitting the window is sudden and unexpected just like cancer. This is the point where all is lost. The final stanza says, “All the glory when he took our place, but he took my shoulders and he took my face, and he takes and he takes and he takes.” This is the man saying that god has taken everything from him that is worth living for and still he continues to take. This man’s faith is also shattered by an adverse human experience.
These two poems have shown us that when people go through tough times the can begin to question their faith and loses faith completely. Thank you for listening today I hope that I have shed some light on how adverse human experiences can shake and shatter a person’s faith.
