Question 6: Poststructuralist Lenses
An Absolutely Ordinary Poststructuralist Deconstruction
The Text: An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow – Les A. Murray
Poststructuralist theory concerns itself with dismantling texts through questioning truth and reality, contradicting itself until the meaning is unstable or non-existent. In the poem An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow by Les A. Murray, the notions of truth and reality are questioned through a silent narrator guiding the reader through a scene of a man publicly weeping. The truths questioned in this poem evolve from social and cultural mindsets about ostensible right and wrong behaviours regarding gender. However, to grasp a comprehensive understanding of the text, post-structuralism, and philosopher …show more content…
There is one man in the seventh stanza of the poem so revolted that he utters the word “ridiculous” upon seeing the other man crying. The gender binaries in the text present a candid portrayal of socially determined acceptable behaviour from men in public society. Rarely are men represented as being emotional creatures, publically or privately, and thus this text challenges a man’s right to express his sadness with dozens of people. There is also great emphasis that this man is an ordinary man, indicating that he is neither homosexual, declared criminally insane or any other external circumstance which may have caused his emotional duress. The Second reading, however, asks us to pull apart these assumptions and deconstruct the …show more content…
The dominant event that is never explained in the poem is why this man was crying, who he was and why he needed to cry in this exact space. The man who is weeping is a symbol of an outcast who challenges a man’s right to express emotion in extreme circumstances, although he is presented as an emotional messiah. The religious undertones in the texts are shown through the sixth stanza where the children crowd at his feet, and the last line where he hurries off “evading believers”. He becomes both a man who others gawk at and insult, and a man who is laying the foundation of emotion acceptance and expression. Another contradiction is the parallel between the “ordinary body” (stanza eight) and the ordinary rainbow. Rainbows have been a symbol for gay activism and pride for years and using the phrases “ordinary rainbow” and “ordinary body” alludes to connotations that maybe this weeping man is a gay man. The crying man’s sexuality is a contradiction from the “like a man” approach that the poem is exuding, questioning a culturally defined reality that gay men are as emotional as women, and therefore it is somewhat more acceptable for him show this much emotion publicly than it would be for a straight “ordinary”
An Absolutely Ordinary Poststructuralist Deconstruction
The Text: An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow – Les A. Murray
Poststructuralist theory concerns itself with dismantling texts through questioning truth and reality, contradicting itself until the meaning is unstable or non-existent. In the poem An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow by Les A. Murray, the notions of truth and reality are questioned through a silent narrator guiding the reader through a scene of a man publicly weeping. The truths questioned in this poem evolve from social and cultural mindsets about ostensible right and wrong behaviours regarding gender. However, to grasp a comprehensive understanding of the text, post-structuralism, and philosopher …show more content…
There is one man in the seventh stanza of the poem so revolted that he utters the word “ridiculous” upon seeing the other man crying. The gender binaries in the text present a candid portrayal of socially determined acceptable behaviour from men in public society. Rarely are men represented as being emotional creatures, publically or privately, and thus this text challenges a man’s right to express his sadness with dozens of people. There is also great emphasis that this man is an ordinary man, indicating that he is neither homosexual, declared criminally insane or any other external circumstance which may have caused his emotional duress. The Second reading, however, asks us to pull apart these assumptions and deconstruct the …show more content…
The dominant event that is never explained in the poem is why this man was crying, who he was and why he needed to cry in this exact space. The man who is weeping is a symbol of an outcast who challenges a man’s right to express emotion in extreme circumstances, although he is presented as an emotional messiah. The religious undertones in the texts are shown through the sixth stanza where the children crowd at his feet, and the last line where he hurries off “evading believers”. He becomes both a man who others gawk at and insult, and a man who is laying the foundation of emotion acceptance and expression. Another contradiction is the parallel between the “ordinary body” (stanza eight) and the ordinary rainbow. Rainbows have been a symbol for gay activism and pride for years and using the phrases “ordinary rainbow” and “ordinary body” alludes to connotations that maybe this weeping man is a gay man. The crying man’s sexuality is a contradiction from the “like a man” approach that the poem is exuding, questioning a culturally defined reality that gay men are as emotional as women, and therefore it is somewhat more acceptable for him show this much emotion publicly than it would be for a straight “ordinary”