From Beginning to End and Back Again: An Analysis of Cycles in Bei Dao’s ‘At the Sky’s Edge’
At the end of Süskind’s Perfume, Grenouille realizes how much he actually hates people and decides to return to Paris where he allows himself to be torn to pieces and consumed by those drawn to his perfume. Grenouille was born to a fishwife that left him and many other illegitimate infants die, but unfortunately Grenouille was rescued and lived a life void of love and emotion. Grenouille turned out to be the abomination the narrator foresaw, murdering young girls to perfect his human perfume. Ironically, he comes back to Paris after realizing how much he hated humans. To finally feel true emotion he allowed himself to be consumed by those that are …show more content…
The cycle motif Dao has established in his poetry with death arriving, “once again,” showing it has happened before, perhaps even several times (1). Those crows of death are “invading the marching forest,” and that forest is personified as marching like an army but is also marching like the season of spring, incorporating a seasonal cycle motif. As the symbolic crows invade the forest in the spring, the previous death archetype also explains the transition between spring and winter (2). The persona describes winter like coming up on a “downhill… slope,” with its connotations of decay and death this creates a life cycle by using season allusions that the reader has to follow. Dao references summer with sunlight so intense that it has the, “exhilaration of two dogs meeting,” a meeting that reflects the excitement and happiness that one experiences in life. Dao’s persona says “that symphony [is] a hospital,” that implies that music is in fact that exhilarating light and that joy, as a result, is a form of healing. He incorporates the symphony for the same reason he included a song in “A State of War,” to convey the cyclical nature of music; further explaining how music can sort, “through this world of confusion,” as repetitive nature of a song provides order to balance the
At the end of Süskind’s Perfume, Grenouille realizes how much he actually hates people and decides to return to Paris where he allows himself to be torn to pieces and consumed by those drawn to his perfume. Grenouille was born to a fishwife that left him and many other illegitimate infants die, but unfortunately Grenouille was rescued and lived a life void of love and emotion. Grenouille turned out to be the abomination the narrator foresaw, murdering young girls to perfect his human perfume. Ironically, he comes back to Paris after realizing how much he hated humans. To finally feel true emotion he allowed himself to be consumed by those that are …show more content…
The cycle motif Dao has established in his poetry with death arriving, “once again,” showing it has happened before, perhaps even several times (1). Those crows of death are “invading the marching forest,” and that forest is personified as marching like an army but is also marching like the season of spring, incorporating a seasonal cycle motif. As the symbolic crows invade the forest in the spring, the previous death archetype also explains the transition between spring and winter (2). The persona describes winter like coming up on a “downhill… slope,” with its connotations of decay and death this creates a life cycle by using season allusions that the reader has to follow. Dao references summer with sunlight so intense that it has the, “exhilaration of two dogs meeting,” a meeting that reflects the excitement and happiness that one experiences in life. Dao’s persona says “that symphony [is] a hospital,” that implies that music is in fact that exhilarating light and that joy, as a result, is a form of healing. He incorporates the symphony for the same reason he included a song in “A State of War,” to convey the cyclical nature of music; further explaining how music can sort, “through this world of confusion,” as repetitive nature of a song provides order to balance the