"Red Shift" Poem Explication

In the poem “Red Shift”, Ted Berrigan suggests that the views and memories of a person is a very complex and interesting thought process because it changes the person’s personality through events. Berrigan uses other poets’ style of writing to create the complex mind of the speaker. He integrates some aspects of himself through the poem to show an individual taking shape in his poem. The poem, “Red Shift” shows subjects of private matters and events that Berrigan mostly write about and gives off intense emotions. He shows complex emotion and thoughts through fragments, short phrases, contents, and run-on sentence.

At the beginning, Berrigan used Frank O’Hara’s style on the first three lines to show the setting. The setting takes place near the end of winter, so it gives of a sad impression. It is because winter gives a sense of coldness and the feeling of death and from line 6, the speaker started to reminisce the past. In line 7, Berrigan used words that represent sorrow and death. In that line, it says that “…Frank disappearing in the air,” which shows sorrow and death because for someone to actually disappear means that they are dead or their physical being is no long there. It can also mean that the memory of the person begins to disappear from the world. Line 7 also shows a part of Berrigan because Berrigan know a person named Frank. The Frank that Berrigan refers to in the poem is the deceased Frank O’Hara. It gives an intense sorrow feeling in that part of the poem.

Berrigan states the memory 20 years back. From lines 11 to 16, it shows the emotions of graceful affection. In the lines 11 and 12, it shows the relationship of a man and a “smiling attentive woman” and the thoughts from the man. To show the affectionate feeling in this memory, Berrigan used small phrases and fragments. From lines 14 to 16, they are filled with phrases of “love, children, hundred of them, money, marriage-ethics, a politics of grace” and other. From those two lines, the speaker speak as if nothing is concealed or hidden and tells of passion of love, children, and money and grace. In line 15, the phrase of “hundreds of them” seems to refer to the children. All the words show a deep passion. Lines 17 and 18 changed the emotion to a bit of despair by the words of “burning even or still, now more than ever…” It shows that something is burning away. It is similar to line 23. From line 19 to22 and 24 to 28, the speaker speaks of duty. Berrigan use the phrase of “both vanish into the thin air we signed up for” in lines 25 and 26 as a sign of obligation and as ones will and choice. Berrigan also used the phrase, “will never leave” in line 27 as if the speaker and the connection cannot end. From line 29, the speaker became contradictive and indecisive. Berrigan used this move to make the character’s thought indistinguishable if the speaker is think in certain way or another. In line 29 and 30, the speaker said when he would die and he said he “will never die” make it hard to figure out if he is thinking of his last days or if he is trying to live past death by will. It shows a bit of anger and superiority. From line 31 to line 37, the speaker talks with superiority. In the last two lines, it becomes indecisive again. It is contradictive to line 32 to33. It makes the speaker again indistinguishable.

From this poem, it shows how the mind is very vast and complex. One thought can change another thought of the person. Events affect how the person thinks next. Each thought lead to another chain of thoughts .As the thoughts change, so is the emotion of the person. People’s thought cannot understand easily.

Myth of Oedipus in “The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”

In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce portrays that the main character Stephen similar tragic hero while maturing through the state of adolescent. Mostly it is compare d more to the character Oedipus. The Myth Oedipus is a Greek legend of a prince who suffers the fate of killing his own father and marrying his own mother. Stephen, however, is not fated to similar be to Oedipus, but emotionally feel the same as Oedipus. Joyce displays the emotion that appears in Stephen’s life through the setting of the situation and the developing maturity with internal conflicts. The emotions that Stephen encounters flow parallel to the tragic feelings of Oedipus takes on as part of his fate.

In the passage when the students of the boarding school question him about kissing his mother, Joyce displays a common trait that both Oedipus and Stephen has. Stephen says that “he kisses his mother every night.”(26) The result of that the students made fun of him. After rejecting the fact that he kisses his mother, the other kids still make fun of him. Stephen shows that he has a feeling for his mother. Joyce created this situation to portray the trait by creating the internal conflict of which answer was right. His kiss represents the love for his mother. Questioning himself gives some significance relating to the love he has for his mother. He even thought of the very deep detail of how his mother kisses him. He describes that “her lips were soft” (27) and that it “wetted his cheek” (27) making the kissing. In the previous passages, Stephen shows great bond with his mother. He always wants his mother to help and protect him. When he was beginning his schooling, he thought of how nice his mother is. When he felt homesick, he called out for his mother. The love and dependence toward his mother gives the idea of Stephen having a mother complex to the readers.

Compared to Oedipus, Stephen is the same. Oedipus was fated to kill his father and married his mother which Oedipus shows love toward his mother. Oedipus does not know that he married his mother. He was taken in by the king and queen of another city when he was abandoned as a baby. He tries to avoid his fate, but his fate was sealed from the beginning. He never actually knows about the identities of his true parent. As he had already married to his mother, Oedipus can kiss his mother. They became intimate with each other. They bear two sons and two daughters from the relationship. To love his mother so much, Oedipus made incest to the one who gave birth to him. Oedipus has the same complex that Stephen has. Both of them have feeling toward their mother, but did not know it. All of their feelings come from their sub-conscience. Both of did not acknowledge that they have feelings for their mother. They have the Oedipus complex, where the child shows affection toward the parent of the opposite sex. James Joyce uses the concept of Oedipus Complex to describes how Stephen as a growing young adolescent have some feeling innocence and maturing to understand women sub-consciously.

As the book went along, Stephen does not only the similar mother complex. He felt the hatred toward himself as Oedipus did. In the chapter where Stephen’s dad gives off the feeling of being dead when he reminisces into his past, Stephen begin to feel humiliation because of his father and other factors. After the play, Stephen felt anger and humiliation for playing a certain part. His “pride and hope and desire” (87) were crushed and burning the “eyes of his mind” (87). His pride is wounded, hopes fallen and “baffled desires” (87). In the end, it clears away. His resentment toward himself cleared. Joyce created this effect showing the agony of Stephen by putting him in the situation where he has to play his part to the end. Joyce uses descriptions and setting to create the emotion. Joyce created this scene for the purpose of showing Stephen growing from his youthful childhood.

In a similar situation, Oedipus resented himself because he played the exact part in the prophecy. He played his role as the murderer of his father and his mother’s lover with out knowing. It pains him for following fate. His mother also known as his wife committed suicide. Out of humiliation and agony of horror, he blinded himself. He resented himself for following his tragic destiny, so he spends the rest of his life being a blind man and assisted by Antigone. Joyce use deep emotional words and show some of the myth into Stephen’s situation to show the similarity between the two. Stephen, at the end, has “a film still veiled his eye.” (87) It is similar to how Oedipus ends up blind though it is temporary. Blinding himself settled his resentment. Stephen and Oedipus were blinded by the “wounded pride.” (87) Stephen was wounded by the part in the play and Oedipus was wounded by the role he takes on in fate. After being blinded, Oedipus leaves his agony of horror and humiliation and continues living as a blind man. Stephen was the same. He leaves his emotion of humiliation after he was blinded by his wounded pride.

However, Joyce created Stephen to be similar to Oedipus in a way but not fated walk the same path that Oedipus was destined to. They are both linked by the emotions and feeling that they both feel due to the events that occur. It gives a sense of things that Stephen’s upbringing is similar to Oedipus. They are mostly linked through emotion. Oedipus shows his love toward his own mother similar to Stephen who also loves his mother. Both living with the Oedipus Complex. They both felt shame and humiliation toward their part. They hated themselves for the roles that they are pitched up against. Hurting in pride, desire, and hope, they suffer the pain. They resolve it with their own power. Stephen is like the modern version of Oedipus by feeling. The emotion of Oedipus was linked to Stephen to show the difficulties in life that Oedipus is going through and how he feels as he grow in to adolescence. Joyce uses Stephen to portray the modern version of Oedipus through emotions to show a path from child to adolescent years of a human being.

Plum Plum Picker

In the short story, The Plum Plum Picker, Raymond Barrio suggests that human beings have dignity and will power that make them different from the nonliving machines. Barrio shows it through the portrayals of the characters and the conflict between them. He uses the third person view through the eyes of the protagonist as the main point of view to reveal his idea. Barrio sets up a situation where the protagonist and his fellow workers are like machines that work so hard to earn money and have it taken away from them.


Barrio set this story based on a working day of the protagonist, Manuel, who is a prune and apricot picker. In the first paragraph, it shows the beginning of the day where Manuel is working in “an endless maze of apricot trees”. (40) Manuel is describing his day and thoughts Barrio added in between the descriptive sentences one word phrases, which show the hectic action in the beginning of the day and the fast speed that the workers are working at in their mechanical state automatically doing things without unnecessary commands. Barrio used the word, “locked” (40), to show how Manuel and the workers are unable to leave the place. As Manuel continue his train of thoughts, “animal”, “brute”, “beast”, and “savage” (40) phrases appeared. Manuel describes his very own “exhausted body” (40) as an animal with “brute cells” (40) and “animal pores” (40). Barrio use that to portray both the protagonist and the worker appear as animals than humans. It shows how they have no honor working as pickers and treated as harshly as animals. Barrio used single word to divide two paragraphs along the beginning of the story. It sets the time in which the event occurs. The second paragraph sets during the lunch time where things are calmer than the beginning for a short period. The paragraph begins with longer sentence than the one word phrase to show that the speed of work has slow down. Manuel’s “short rest” (40) shows how short the time is for lunch. Afterwards, it became hectic again. “The trees” (40) and “the branches” (40) were used to show that there is no movement forward in the work because no action occurred.


In Manuel’s picking of apricots, he was like an n machine. Manuel picked the “mountain of cots automatically” (40). He act similar to an “automator” (40) that continuously doing the same thing over ad over without thoughts about it. It shows how the workers are so uniform and lifeless. Barrio introduces another character by the name of Robert Morales. The name, Morales, represent the person as a person without morals. It is similar to Manuel’s name, which represent a simple man or manual. It tells the characteristic of the people just by their names. Morales is truly a person with out morals and is the “worst kind” (40). He is described as “a gentlemanly, friendly, polite, grinning, vicious, thieving brute” (40). Barrio shows the layers toward Morales’s true personality by using contradictions to describe Morales. Mid afternoon shows the near end of work for the people. In the end, it shows Morales trying to steal money off of the pickers to satisfy himself. Unlike a machine at this point, Manuel spoke up and spurred the others to rebel. Instead of being an obedient machinery or beast that does what the master want, Manuel and the others did not forfeit their money over. He and the others “moved toward their buckets” (41) and kick it in attempt to stop Morales’s rule over them. Barrio made Manuel show “his defiance” (41) to create Manuel’s dignity, will power and realization of the purpose of men. It shows that the workers who are constantly working like machines “are dead before they die” (41). Barrio uses the two characters to create a situation where the people have to strike back and show the actual life that they hidden while automatically doing their work.


Barrio show his idea that human beings have dignity and will power that makes them truly alive. Humans are not machines that would follow every order given without questions. It show that they have a will and they will not stand to be treated like machine just because of superiority ranking. They have their dignity to protect the things they rightfully earn.