How Those Your Chosen Texts (a Selection of Songs by the Smiths) Contribute to Your Understanding of “Belonging” with Some Reference to Emily Dickinson
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 01/29/2010 01:38 AM
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Through exegesis and exploration of my chosen text, “A Selection of Songs by The Smiths”, as well comparisons linked to Emily Dickinson’s set poems, a vast array of representations of belonging have been discerned. Through an abundance of ideas, the texts provide variable discourses as to how we can view belonging, exploring the state of belonging, mainly through its paradoxes. Thus the study of The Smith’s songs individually as well as comparatively to Emily Dickinson has contributed significantly to my understanding of belonging.
The concept of alienation is continually reverted to in the Smiths songs, emphasising the importance of this paradox to belonging, in the understanding of belonging itself. The Smith’s songs continually use the theme of loneliness, desperation and frustration in face of desire to belong. This theme is similarly shared in the selection of Emily Dickinson poems, whereas understanding of belonging is taken from continuous reference to the variances between the persona and a wider society. The general majority of Smith’s songs are underlined with echoes of loneliness, in lyrical content, and the resonating quality of vocals by Morrisey. This concludes in the monotonous and haunting effect, emphasising desperation and isolation. Morrisey’s bleak and morbid approach is essential in establishing the human necessity to belong. His use of death as a motif replicates Dickinson’s, and represents the heightened state of emotions.
The songs establish that belonging is essential to identity, as well as an inner sense of balance. This is achieved through absence of these characteristics in the persona’s recollections in the texts. In the song “How Soon in Now” writer Morrisey presents a persona who is crippled by loneliness and overwhelming shyness, and how this establishes a barrier against belonging. The lyrics “I am Human and I need to be loved” emphasise the necessity of human’s to belong and it’s repetition ads to effect the persona’s...
The concept of alienation is continually reverted to in the Smiths songs, emphasising the importance of this paradox to belonging, in the understanding of belonging itself. The Smith’s songs continually use the theme of loneliness, desperation and frustration in face of desire to belong. This theme is similarly shared in the selection of Emily Dickinson poems, whereas understanding of belonging is taken from continuous reference to the variances between the persona and a wider society. The general majority of Smith’s songs are underlined with echoes of loneliness, in lyrical content, and the resonating quality of vocals by Morrisey. This concludes in the monotonous and haunting effect, emphasising desperation and isolation. Morrisey’s bleak and morbid approach is essential in establishing the human necessity to belong. His use of death as a motif replicates Dickinson’s, and represents the heightened state of emotions.
The songs establish that belonging is essential to identity, as well as an inner sense of balance. This is achieved through absence of these characteristics in the persona’s recollections in the texts. In the song “How Soon in Now” writer Morrisey presents a persona who is crippled by loneliness and overwhelming shyness, and how this establishes a barrier against belonging. The lyrics “I am Human and I need to be loved” emphasise the necessity of human’s to belong and it’s repetition ads to effect the persona’s...