Representations

Representations

A mere reflection of what we want to see. Mere reflections of our memories. Or of us. I think representations in this poem, in terms of my perspective are a mere reflection of ourselves or what we want to think. The imagery is shown by our “representations”. In the poem the speaker defines representations as “things residing inside the brain.” (Sanes). I guess this kind of relates to my definition because representations are what we see, from our perspective. What we think and feel, our emotions expressed through our reflections is residing inside our brain. There is a lot of imagery described here, for example “from childhood memories to the feeling of pain, and from the sound of a sigh to the sight of rain”. (Sanes). This is also a rhyme, and I think the poet purposely made it this way, for us as readers to think back to our childhood, how we felt pain, and we felt happy at the sight of rain. He was trying to put emphasis on those two words (pain and rain) to make us realize our past is valuable, and that when we get older these are just representations or reflections of our past. I could go on with the many rhymes the poet had put in this poem to make us think about what is real and what is not. Another one is “in a world full of falsehood, where things are unclear, our task (that’s our choice) is to move beyond fear.” (Sanes). Well there will always be false acquisitions in life that we will encounter, and it is our choice whether to accept falsehood, or to avoid it (get away from your fears). “We’re stuck in a fictional person” (Sanes) is a line I thought that could be a metaphor. The poet is comparing human beings to fictional characters that appear in books. We are living in dreams, in books, where everything is right, where everywhere is paradise. Seems like the ideal place to live, like your own “Utopia”. I think everything that is done in life, or what our reflections tell us, is from our point of view. Important words that stood out to me in the poem were, sensation, emotion, aversion, desire, and thought. I believe these are important words because we feel, we cry, cheer, we dislike things, our deepest wants, what we want desperately and what our train of thought is. These are mere reflections of what we want. We feel happiness, sadness; we feel many things in our representations.

I think the poem is addressing the human condition when the poet talks about having our greatest desires, and we will rest at nothing to have that desire. That is just who we are, we are human beings. In a weird way, our representations motivate us to do good or bad in life depending on where you are looking at. This poem address life, and how life is meant to be, and how we as human beings take life to be a game or merely a dream. I think the poet wants us to realize what life is. “we feel that we think, and think that we feel? The answer, of course, is that none of us knows.” (Sanes). I think from this line in the poem, the poet is trying to make us think whether our lives are genuine or authentic or not. Is there a purpose?

Are we living a fantasy? Is life really real? The main theme explored in this poem would have to be appearance versus reality. I say this because from all the clues in the poem “just their representations with a texture and feel that lead us to think we’re experiencing what’s real”. “We’re stuck in a fictional person.” (Sanes). Our representations make us think what is real, but in reality, what we dream is not real, it is not real at all. If you want to fly in a dream, you can but once you wake up, you cannot fly anymore, that is just life. If you try to fly off a cliff, you will just hit the ground and die. That is the cold hard truth. Our representations do not make life real, it is just an appearance. A sentence that really hit me from the poem is “In fact, it would mean that there’s no way to find a direct perception of things or true access to mind”. (Sanes). Basically, even if there wasn’t representation of how we feel and what we want to think, there is never a wrong or right answer to life. The mind should always be free, as we want but really it is not. The mind is always stressed at given points, always busy with everyday things. I think as a society we tend to over-complicate things and make life stressful for us. We want to sit back and relax but actually we cannot because we have to catch up on work, or do chores, do something. In reality we don’t realize our wants because they become hard to accomplish, but in an appearance or reflection everything seems so easy.