History Of Desire Nostalgia Analysis

Nostalgia, the desire to live in the past and a feeling that mainly every person experiences. To go back to the days where a person was innocent and didn’t care about the actions they performed, no matter how silly and foolish the actions were. Mainly, nostalgia is something that is believe to have a positive meaning where a person recalls good memories. However, nostalgia can consume you and cause a negative aspect. Tony Hoagland’s book Sweet Ruins tells about the nostalgia that a character feels. The main character tells the story of when he is reminded of his past and his actions that leads up to his current regrets and anger. In a particular poem, “History of Desire”, tells the story of Ron, who begins to feel this negative nostalgia. So,
Driving home, he’s recalling his past when he was in love at seventeen. A girl name Doris, who he was madly in love with. Ron was so in love with her that he got drunk one night and stole his dad’s El Dorado to go spray-paint on the town’s water tower. He spray-painted on the reservoir “RON LOVES DORIS” to let the world know how in love he was with her. At the time, his desire was a controlling force and caused him to make an irrational decision. He was young, drunk, and foolish. Ron was manipulated by love and wanted nothing more than exhibit the love he felt for her. However, he never thought or knew that this past memory will haunt him as a form of nostalgia. Ten years later, or 10 A.D. (after Doris) he arrives home, he soon discovers that the words of his random impulse still remain on the local water town. Ron feels a rush of anger, so much anger that he presses the gas on his Mustang, hoping to leave the memory behind, “What makes you blush, and shove / the pedals of the Mustang / almost through the floor / as if you wanted to spray gravel / across the features of the past, / or accelerate into oblivion?” (lines 27-32). However, not matter how hard he tries, he can’t escape this past