Intro
Now that we've looked at three readings straight from the horses' mouths (erm...so to speak), it's time we ventured off into the uncharted wilderness. Let's take a look at a poem that the major poststructuralist writers haven't interpreted for us already: Wallace Stevens's "Anecdote of the Jar." Stevens is a notoriously complex and difficult poet, so it makes sense that his writings would give us something great to sink our teeth into.
Before we get into it, let's figure out what we're trying to do here.
Poststructuralist readings tend to do one or all of these things:
- a) prove that a piece of lit just so happens to be a perfect illustration of a flaw at the heart of Western thought;
- b) prove that a piece of lit just so happens to be a perfect illustration of how signification works;
- c) show how language always undoes its own meaning;
- d) make dirty puns about sex (tee hee!);
- e) expose relationships between language and power.
So what'll it be this time? Shmoopers, spin that wheel!
Quote
"I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill."
Analysis
Good old Stevens. What's that even mean?
Let's start with something basic, like asking ourselves if Stevens's image of the jar on a hill reminds us of anything in particular. Like oh, we don't know, a certain focus on "centers" that a certain French philosopher loves to go on about. Now let's ask ourselves (again): WWDD?
The answer is: role play!
Dr. Jacques D. Shmoop: "You see, this poem provides us an exceptionally good illustration of the function of the "center" in the history of Western thought. Notice how as soon as the
'I' of the poem (and who, may we ask, is this 'I' who speaks to us from, as it were, the other side of the glass, the glass of the jar itself). Anyway, as soon as this 'I' places the jar on the hill in Tennessee, all of a sudden, everything else appears to surround this jar. Before there was a jar, this 'slovenly wilderness' did not surround at all."
We kid. (At, least, in terms of how simply our version of the guy talks—he didn't even make up any words!). But seriously, folks—there's something to learn here. Dr. Jacques is right: as soon as that jar gets smacked down on the hill in Tennessee, it becomes the center of all the stuff around it, and everything else seems to be surrounding it. Even though before the jar showed up, everything was just there.
Placing the jar on the hill totally changes the speaker's perspective. We don't know what he/she saw before, but we know for sure that the jar makes things seem different. Our buddy Derrida would say that this poem is great example of how "centers" get created. As soon as you decide that one aspect of a text or idea or person or even a whole culture is the most important aspect, it's hard not to imagine that everything else revolves around that one super important thing.
Derrida is most interested in thinking about what this has meant for the history of Western thought, but you don't have to take it that far. There's plenty to chew over in the lit context alone.
Consider this: we started out with a pretty clear idea of what a poststructuralist might find in "Anecdote of the Jar," and, lo and behold, we found it. The poem turned out to be a perfect illustration of a flaw at the heart of Western thought—that pesky imaginary center turns up everywhere!
But wait, why exactly did it turn up here? Was it really part of the poem to begin with, or did we put it there by expecting to find it? By looking for an image of the center in the poem, did we place our own jar on a hill? What might we have found if we'd gone in without assuming what we did?
If you're feeling like your head is just a little bit about to explode—great! You're right where poststructuralism wants you.