Robert Graves’ poem Escape is about a soldier pondering death. There is an AABB rhyme scheme. There is a mythological and surreal element in the poem, “Cerberus stands and grins above me now, wearing three heads—lion, and lynx, and sow.” Cerberus is from Greek mythology and is the creature that guards the under world. It’s a three-headed dog but Graves changes this to the head of a lynx a lion and a sow. I’m not sure why Graves alludes to Greek mythology rather than the bible when referring to death and afterlife. It could show losing faith in God and Christianity which many poets did at this time but I still don’t understand why he would refer to the Greeks. Graves also juxtaposes mythic figures with common ones “After me roared and clattered angry hosts, Of demons, heroes, and policeman-ghosts.” The policeman amongst the powerful creatures has interesting effects, it brings everyday authority into his punishment it makes the other things seem mundane and not as powerful. The heroes and villains stand along side each other, the policeman the source of authority is dead, and they are all after the narrator. The clear-cut notions of good and evil and trustworthy authority are degraded. The narrator portrays Cerberus as nothing more than a domestic dog “Good Cereberus!..Good Dog…Stay” this has a biting humorous quality, with all the death this man has seen the gatekeeper of hell seems like nothing more than a dog that he tries to train. And the man dupes the dog,” Then swiftly Cerberus’ wide mouths I cram with army biscuit smeared with ration jam.” The jam and biscuit are very significant, as they relate to wartime and soldiers and imply how dying in war morphs the notion of death and afterlife. He uses what gave him the army to escape hell. There is an old notion that if you die in battle you automatically goes to hell so maybe Graves could be showing how this shouldn’t be true.
Hey Elizabeth, good post!
ReplyDeleteYou picked up on quite a few of the elements I chose to sidestep, notably the three different heads of Cerberus - why do you think Graves chose to do this?
Concerning the three different characters that try preventing the protagonist from leaving Hades, your interpretation is quite different than what I've heard before. In class, we amounted their differences to mean that everyone dies, but I wondered if they could symbolize something higher. While you mention the policeman as having more power because he is mundane, as opposed to over things, do you know if this happens elsewhere in the poem? I can see the distinction between good and evil that occurs in that part, but I'm not sure if it's a recurrent theme or not.
Anyway, lovely post! :)
The three heads of cerebus i think stay true to the mythical figure of cerbus. However i think the different faces, lion, lynx, and sow represent a sort of masqerade. Im not entirely sure about this but, the heads could stand for different countries mascots, for example the lion could represent England. That would imply that countries are forcing men to go off to die, as Cerebus keeps people dead. the Cerebus masquerade shows how nations are unrightfuly playing god, carelessly using soldiers as pawns in there political game. i think this would relate to the Anti War sentiment which you mentioned on your blog. I dont know about good and evil as a recurrent theme, where do you see that precisely? I dont think that this poem is about a battle between the two at all. As the heros as well as the demons are dead. The mundaneness of the police officer contrasting with the demons and heros, implies that every day authority and justice, represented by the police men is dead. Along side clear notions of good and evil. The juxtapostion of the mundane and the more mythical show his stylistic struggle as a writer.
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