An Examination of Culture in "Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: Dialogue of Life and Death" by Dianne C. Luce

Note: page numbers cited are quoting The Sunset Limited.

White feels trapped in Black's apartment
much the same way these innocent prisoners
and detained behind foreboding metal gates
of the Dachau concentration camp, whose sign
gives them false hope for staying alive:
"Work makes you free."
White is confined both by Black's need
to educate him about the goodness of God
and the seven locks bolting the door shut.
Even though Black sees himself as a savior,
White sees him as a jail guard for keeping
him alive in a "world [that] is basically
a forced labor camp from which the workers
- perfectly innocent - are led forth by lottery,
a few each day, to be executed" (49).

For White, culture—literature, art, music—once inspired him and gave him something to believe in, despite his resentment for people in general. In a way, it was for him what religion was for Black; while White sees Black as a Bible thumper, Black describes white as a “culture junkie” (27). However, White lost all hope for the human race after "Western Civilization finally went up in smoke in the chimneys at Dachau" (27). In the 1940s, the Nazis attempted to preserve and expand a perfect German culture by educating and annihilating any minority that diverged from the pure Arian ideal. After seeing such horrific atrocities, the professor believes he "witness[ed] the death of everything" he ever knew to be good and true (26). According to Dianne C. Luce, “his knowledge of human history has led him to conclude that happiness is ‘contrary to the human condition’ (54),” and he sees no point in being alive anymore because living only leads to pain. McCarthy illustrates through White’s perspective of reality that the death of culture leads to the death of human spirit.

Watch White's closing argument below.

Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited is unique in a number of ways. Called a novel in dramatic form, it is meant to be both read and performed in order to grasp the full meaning behind the work. A distinctive characteristic is that the only two characters are unnamed, just labeled the Black and the Professor (or White in the film), and they remain in one room of Black’s apartment for the duration of the story. It is obvious that the men have drastically different views of life and the world around them. On one hand, we have the white professor, who is brilliant and highly educated with a love for culture, but has an incredibly gloomy outlook because he has been deeply depressed for years and is suicidal. Then there is the black man, who saves the white man from jumping in front of a train and preaches to the white man about God’s love while alternatively telling gruesome, bloody stories about how he bludgeoned another man while he was in prison for murder. These contrasting outlooks lead audiences to ponder whose view is right and question the very nature of reality itself.

What do you think? Is the black man right, or is the white man? Perhaps it's neither, or maybe even both are correct if reality is merely based upon a person's point of view. Watch the full film below to formulate your own opinion.

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 60 ("Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore")

This is a description of the lines of meter utilized in Shakespeare's Sonnet 60, which can be read here.

In this day and age when free verse poetry has become the norm, many readers do not notice the rhythm of the poems. However, the meter should not just be ignored because it is often implemented to provide emphasis on important words and phrases and express the main themes of the work as a whole. This is evident in William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60 [“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore”]. This piece features the customary elements of a Shakespearean sonnet: three quatrains ending with a couplet, the ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme, and lines in iambic pentameter (lines with a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables). However, unlike most of his sonnets, this one includes several trochees (lines with a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables), which can be noted in the beginning of the first two lines with “Like as” and “So do.” The iambic meter undulates like the waves that “make towards the pebbled shore” the same way “our minutes” of our lives “hasten to their end,” and the trochees act like the waves crashing forcefully against the rocks. The next trochee is found in lines six through seven: “Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned // Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight.” The transformed pattern draws attention to the toils people go through from birth to inevitable death, when all their glory is brought to an end.

Here are some examples of different types of meter.
For more help, check out this study guide.

Oscar Wilde's "Symphony in Yellow"

This is an interpretation of the poem "Symphony in Yellow," which can be found here.

How one might picture a bus like
a butterfly had they ever seen "The
Magic School Bus" as a child. 

One key detail that strikes me in this poem is that the reader should assume from the title that the piece is about a symphony, yet there are no adjectives indicating any sounds. However, Wilde seems to be representing the music through vivid aesthetic descriptions of the speeds and colors of the things that might be seen around the Thames River. The reader begins to think that he or she has synesthesia while reading these three stanzas, feeling the slow, tranquil movement of these objects and seeing the music in colors, just as the bus crossing the bridge “Crawls like a yellow butterfly.” Like in most music, the pace is sometimes changed in instances like when the occasional person walks by who “Shows like a little restless midge.” To exhibit change in the music’s mood and tone, the speaker contrasts the golden images with the dark “shadowy wharf” and “The thick fog [that] hangs along the quay,” and ultimately the yellow scenery evolves into a pale green color when the speaker steps into the cool Thames that “Lies like a rod of rippled jade,” constantly moving, yet always staying in place.