Richard Brautigan on Technology

The struggle between nature and technology has been debated upon for the past half century. Richard Brautigan’s poem, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” uses sarcasm to express his anti-technology views. The whole poem has a sarcastic tone especially the lines in parenthesis. The actual text sounds like Brautigan likes technology but his juxtapositions of nature and technology like deer walking past computers are almost absurd and unbelievable. He talks about machines having a loving grace but machines have no feelings and are not associated as having the feeling of love. Phrases such as “cybernetic forest” and “cybernetic meadow” also gives us an image of a virtual reality, suggesting that we are leaving the real word and into pixilated world.

Brautigan’s poem can be interpreted as pro-technology if it is read literally. Repetition of what he would like to think suggests that he wishes for harmony with literature. By putting nature and technology it would seem like he wants naturalists and scientists to agree with each other.

However, figurative language triumphs over literal text. He uses irony as a tool to convey his idea that technology is not as good as it seems. The first two lines in parentheses are sarcastic because they attack at the speed of technology. He wants a harmony between technology and nature but that will never come fast and technology cannot speed up a consensus. Living in a programmed harmony sounds like a world where the two exist together is not real and maybe even forced. His last line in the poem is the major line that expresses his views. This line is extremely effective since it is the title and the last line of the poem. Being watched over by machines means that humans will be taken over by technology, where robots will the ones controlling us. Brautigan believes that we will eventually lose control of our technological creations. When he says we will return “to our mammal brother and sisters” it seems like we are going back to an uncivilized way while the technology is controlling us. Therefore, Brautigan wants us to slow down and think about whether we should be progressing with such artificial intelligence.

"The Living Hand"

In “This Living Hand”, John Keats uses his descriptions of a hand as a metaphor for the speaker’s relationship with possibly a lover or an enemy. He compares the speaker’s living hand to that of a dead hand symbolizing a positive or negative relationship with the reader. The living hand is described as “warm and capable of earnest grasping.” The word capable suggests that a positive relationship could but not will necessarily form between them. He then contrasts this warm hand with a cold, icy hand belonging to a corpse. The dead hand would haunt the other day and night so badly that they would give up their life by ridding their own heart with blood in order for the dead hand to be alive again and not haunt them.
This poem could be used as a threat toward the reader because he holds out his hand at the end of the poem as if expecting the reader to shake it. A handshake symbolizes unity and agreement. Keats is saying it would be unfortunate for the reader to reject the hand because the speaker will make their life terrible. He could also be threatening the reader with death if the offer was rejected. Since he tells the reader to be calm at the end of the poem, the first part is intended to disturb the reader.
However the poem is ambiguous in that the poem could also be directed to a lover. The living hand could suggest that the speaker is alive, but if he were dead his lover would be haunted by his ghost. She would miss him so much she would kill herself so that he may live. It may be that the speaker is trying to woo the reader by telling her that she would be at a loss if she didn’t take his hand. It could also be that he is telling the reader he will not be there for long, and she should be with him while he is able to hold out his hand to her.

The Name Game

As I stare at my pillow pet trying to think of a name for a new blog, I began to think; recently a new fad has taken over every department store. You can’t walk into Walgreens, Target, or even Disneyland without seeing a pillow pet for sale. Sure, these pillows are cute and appealing, coming in all different types of animals with their ability to transform from a stuffed animal into a pillow, but I think in a couple years it will just become a dying fad. Pretty soon people will wonder what to do with their pillow pets, and eventually it will become one of the nostalgic objects we all look upon to symbolize the 2010s.

This blog is about literature, which I think is made up of fads. As the centuries go by, different genres and authors have come and gone. Literary fads are now categorized into such eras as romanticism, postmodernism, and classicism. Like the many types of animals in the pillow pet fad, there are many authors that go with each literary era. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne was popular during the transcendental era, or fad, in the 1850s, but now is only read out of necessity in school or by avid readers. Current book fads are the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling and the Millennium Trilogy by Steig Larsson. These authors are one of the highest selling authors, quite like Charles Dickens, but who knows how long their raving fame will last. I will probably be writing about literature from many eras, but my opinions will be from this era, the same era as the pillow pet fad.