Gretel in Darkness (Essay Sample)

Gretel in Darkness
Student’s Name
University Affiliation
Gretel in darkness.
This poem was written by Louise Gluck who was born on April 22, 1943 in the New York City and later grew up on Long Island. Being that Ms. Gluck is a modern writer as well as a lecturer in one of the universities, there is very little information about home on the internet. This is unfortunate because it bars our full interpretation because a person’s life may help in explaining the works they write about. The first criticism done is the intertextual criticism.
Intertextuality is the interdependent ways under which texts stand in relation to one another so as to produce meaning. Texts may be literal or non-literal but they may still be viewed as though they lack any kind of independent meaning by the modern theorists. This is what is known as intertextual criticism (Allen, 2011).
The poem that is compared with this is the Gingerbread House written by John Owen. There are numerous instances where intertextuality exists in the two poems. When the two poems are compared it’s seen that there are certain word or phrases used in the poems which have different meanings when inferred. In the Gingerbread, the writer talks of the little girl or the little boy who was imprisoned in the woods by an evil witch. This occurs when they stumbled upon a house that had been used for a long time by the witch to lure her young victims. …said it was a witch’s house. While in the Gretel in Darkness, the writer says …the spires of that gleaming kiln come back…, here Louise tries to recall the memories they used to have together with the one who is gone.
All these are used to show the demons that disturb the community. Such demons only thrive by fostering hatred and persecution to the community while watching from far. She cast a wicked spell that made us hate each other.
Apart from the intertextual criticism, another form evident from the two poems is the formalistic criticism. This includes all the stylistic forms used in the poem that make it authentic. There are quite a number of the stylistic devices applied here that makes the poem a very formal one. There is the use of repetition. Repetition has been used to show emphasis on the way in which the writer is obsessed with the past, it is real, real. Repetition is also used to depict Gretel’s persistent mental return to the event. Repetition is also used to show the different facets in a chronologically and simultaneously occurrence, indicating the burning of the witch, the spires of that gleaming kiln.
Imagery has also been used to a larger extent. The character Gretel displays her thoughts to an audience that is imaginary to her brother Hansel, whose life she at one point saved through killing a witch. They now live happily and this is shown by father bars the door, bars harm from this house.
The writer has also employed the use of irony. Gluck’s poem depicts Gretel as a tormented adult who is being haunted by earlier deeds. It’s ironic however that her brother, for whom she committed that murder to save, goes on with his life without caring about anything, as if the madder never happened.
Contrast has also been used here. The writer established a contrast between the one time natures of events. In this people like Hansel, have for a long time moved beyond. This is contrasted with recurring nature of the human memory. The writer displays the characteristic stream of consciousness and it’s seen that this style comes out very successfully. There is also frequent focus on the dark material by putting forth a character who cannot reconcile with past actions. Apart from the death of the witch, Louise show Gretel suffering mental torture. This presents the author with a dreary vision of an individual who is ruled by the internal delusions that helps in preventing the person from the surrounding reality.
The author of The Gingerbread House has also used a lot of exaggeration so as to parody the original form. The sequential order of events is not followed.
Thirdly, another effect or criticism that is going to be discussed here is the mimetic affect or the mimetic criticism. Mimetic involves looking into details how the two pays juxtaposed affect us directly. There are several ways through which the poems discussed above have impacts on our lives. There are quite a number of instances through which life is imitated by the two poems. The community that they little girl in the Gingerbread emanates from one that fosters hatred and persecution. The community is depicted as one with evil deeds.
Whatever is read from the two poems upon comparison with the actual world, it’s found that the poems actually refer to world of today and not the one that existed during the time that Louise wrote the poem. The descriptions currently fit Sunnydale in California. As it folds out from the two poems, the little girl grows to be mature adults.
They find themselves inside a vigilante mob that tries to search the lockers of other students. Lockers where they find something offensive, they burn such materials down and have the practitioners of the so called attacked. Gingerbread ends almost the same way the Gretel in Darkness ended. The writer informs the reader of how mentally affected Gretel is the same thing. Those who participated in the burning of the books are experiencing the same memory problem. They experience a selective memory problem. It’s therefore evidently shown that the writers have managed to include or to incorporate mimetic in the movies.
Affective criticism is also another element that should be looked into. This element puts into consideration how the poem affects us personally. The events in the poem are those that one can easily identify with. Gretel in Darkness is a story about a boy, Gretel, who is currently undergoing pain for having killed a witch to protect the s...