"Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines" Journal 2

RENT-Your Eyes:
Your eyes
As we said our goodbyes
Can't get them out of my mind
And I find I can't hide
From your eyes
The ones that took me by surprise
The night you came into my life
Where there's moonlight I see your eyes
How'd I let you slip away
When I'm longing so to hold you
Now I'd die for one more day
'Cause there's something I should have told you
Yes there's something I should have told you
When I looked into your eyes
Why does distance make us wise?
You were the song all along
And before this song dies
I should tell you I should tell you
I have always loved you
You can see it in my eyes
Mimi

Towards the end of the musical RENT, the protagonist, Roger, watches his love die, and sings this song as a reaction. "Your Eyes" is about the regret in not openly showing his love for her, while Pablo Neruda's poem is of accepting that he is no longer with her. Roger repeatedly expresses that he will "die for one more day", and that his song for her is dying. Through his figurative dying alongside Mimi's death, the speaker emphasizes the regert and hindsight that one has on their deathbed. In "Tonight I Can write the saddest lines", the speaker is focusing on HIS feelings towards this loss of love. He does this by constantly referring back to "I" and "My" and "Me". In "Your Eyes", the speaker also uses "I" and other personal pronouns to show that he is under more burden than she is, even though she is the one dying. The main difference between these two works is that "Your Eyes" shows that it is about regret while "Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines" is about accepting the loss.

XIII Journal 1

1. This poem is about the despair that is inevitable in stifling emotions. A person, man, has a sexual experience with his love, then he goes into his way of lifting her spirits when she is sad. In the distance that the couple share, a sadnress lingers. He can't express himself and thus, even though he wants to, his inability of expression has negative consequences. Another way of viewing this poem is as a euphemism of sex.
2.The reader can assume that it is a man speaking to a women, as shown by the dominating positions the speaker takes over his love. This man is a sensitive but incapable lover. He lives in a mental solitude since his loss of his woman. The man is speaking to his woman, with his 'stories to tell yo u on the shore of evening".
3.The author writes this poem to warn of love from personal experience. The tone is reminiscent and almost regretful. He shows us what NOT to do. "only a few drops are left trembling." His examples of desire, shown through the imagery of the animals and water, set a path that he regrets having walked. The end of his painful relationship, the "close[s] like a nocturnal flower" is the final end of the nature imagery, and so the end of his advice. Through this poem, the author also illustrates the objectification of women, and the childish approach that men take towards women: to this man, women are for "marking" and are "toy doll[s]".
4.The overall 'glue' of the work is the letter 's'. It is always used when the woman is mentioned, but when he focuses solely on himself, he abandons 's'. Thus, this overwhelming odds of 's' vs. non's' complements his inability to decide. The author writes in a way that literally embodies the man's emotions and feelings towards her. "something ... something ... something ..." Every something is a piece of his inability to choose words to his feelings and thoughts. However, when he mentions his woman, he can immediately go to the word "doll". This comparison between "something" and "doll" emphasizes the objectification of women