Ahmad Inggris
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Transcript of Ahmad Inggris
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ABSTRACT
The Meaning of grass in Carl Sandburg's poem "Grass". School of ForeignLanguages 2013
The reason of the writer in choosing the poem Grass by Carl Sandburgas the main source that is analyzed since the poem has a hidden messagebehind its title, Grass.
The study intends to solve some questions. It explains the generalmeaning of the poem. It explains the writer's intention in making the poem.The last, it answers the meaning of grass as the symbol that represents theconnection between the nature and human beings.
Therefore, in analysing those problems, the writer uses the semioticapproach since the problems fits to it. This approach brings the theory ofsemiotic from linguistic point of view that shows the meaning of grass in thepoem.
ln the end, the writer concludes that the poem has a very importanthidden message behind its title Grass. The result of this analysis indicates Ithat the word grass has various meanings. Grass is not merely a simple plantthat grows cover the land but it also can represent the connection betweenthe nature and the human beings. As the speaker in the poem, grassrepresents as a cover for the horrible wounds of the past and it is also as thecommentary on the world's forgetfulness of the horrors of war and
destruction.
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ABSTRAK
The Meaning of grass in Carl Sandburg's poem "Grass".
Alasan penulis daiam memilih puisi Grass oleh Carl Sandburg sebagaiacuan utamanya untuk dianalisa puisi tersebut memiliki pesan tersembunyidari judulnya yaitu Grass.
Penulisan ini bermaksud untuk mencari jawaban atas empatpertanyaan. Pertama, penulisan ini menjelaskan arti umum dari puisitersebut. Kedua, penulisan ini menjelaskan arti khusus dari puisi tersebut.Ketiga, penulisan ini menjelaskan alasan si pengarang dalam membuat puisi
tersebut. Dan terakhir, penulisan ini memberikan jawaban atas makna darikata rumput sebagai simbol yang mewakili hubungan antara alam danmanusia.
Oleh sebab itu, dalam menganalisa masalah ini, penulis menggunakanpendekatan semiotik karena masalah yang terkait berhubungan dengan halitu. Pendekatan ini menggunakan teori semiotik dari sudut pandang linguistikyang menunjukkan makna dari kata rumputdalam puisi tersebut.
Akhir kata, penulis menyimpulkan bahwa puisi tersebut mempunyaipesan tersembunyi yang amat penting di balik judulnya yaitu Grass. Hasil daripenulisan ini menunjukkan bahwa kata rumput memiliki banyak makna.Rumput tidak hanya semata-mata sebagai tanaman sederhana yang tumbuh
menutupi daratan tapi ia juga dapat mewakili hubungan antara alam danmanusia. Sebagai narator dalam puisi tersebut, rumput melambangkansebagai sebuah penutup atau penyembuh dari luka menyakitkan di masa laludan juga sebagai kritik terhadap keacuhan dunla atas kengerlan dankerusakan dari perang.
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and heard in a communal setting. However, all great literature, whether a
private or a shared experience, by expressing basic truth that is common to
all of mankind, evokes a deeply responsive chord.
Literary works is writings that are valued as work of art, especially
fiction, drama and poetry. As a part of literature, poetry is another way of
expressing the author's feeling and thought. A single poem may have
different meanings for different people. Some of the answers given may have
been quite wrong. But we must have noticed that none of the 'right' answers
were exactly the same.
G. Methods of Study
The thesis is a library research using a descriptive method. This thesis
studies and describes about the condition of our world in the past and the
reaction of the people in the present. The writer uses the main object of this
analysis, namely the poem 'Grass' as the primary source. For the secondary
sources, she has read some supporting books such as the history of America,
biographies and theories on literature. Additionally, she also tries to find some
information from the internet to support her thesis.
In this study the writer uses two approaches, which are the semiotic
and sociohistorical approach.
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B. The Theory of Semiotic
Semiotics is the study systems of rules and conventions which enable
social and cultural phenomena (signs) to be easily understood by everyone.
In literary theory semiotics is the analysis of text in terms of its use of
language as dependent on and influenced by literary conventions and modes
of discourse. The terms "semiotics" and "semiology" are used
interchangeably.
Semiotic can be defined broadly as a domain of investigation that
explores the nature and function of signs as well as the systems and
processes underlying signification, expression, representation and
communication. As demonstrated from numerous cultural traces (verbal,
pictorial, plastic, spatial artifacts, etc ), the role of signs in human life has
been an ongoing concern over the ages whenever questions have been
asked about what constitutes signs and what laws govern them.
Literary semiotics can be seen as a branch of the general science of
signs that studies a particular group of texts within verbal texts in general.
Although the task of literary semiotics is to describe what characteristic of
literary texts or discourse is, it is founded on the same principles and
analytical procedures as the semiotics of verbal discourse. However, for two
fundamental reasons, there exists no generally aqcepted definition of the
scope and object of literary semiotics. First, the boundaries of literary
discourse seem to have been established more by tradition than by objective,
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formal criteria. Contrary to other semiotic discourses, for example, legal
discourse, literary discourse cannot be characterized by a specifically
distinctive content. For instance, the literariness of a text (in the framework of
the intrinsic structure of the text) varies according to culture and epoch.
Second, there is still a wide-ranging, continuing debate regarding the status
of the verbal sign and the nature of the signifying process, as underscored in
the entry "Sign" in Thomas Sebeok's Encyclopedic Dictionary (936-47). The
fundamental differences between opposing semioticians are related mainly to
whether they adopt an intentional, or meaning-oriented, description of a sign
system or the codes correlating a given expression with a given content or a
more extensional, truth-condition-oriented one that concentrates on the
processes of communication by which signs are used to designate, to refer to
"things or states of the real or of some possible world".
In semiotic point of view - which comes from Saussure's theory
language is a sign system and as a sign system, language represents
another term so called meaning, as quoted from Culler, in Pengkajian Puisi
by Rachmat Djoko Pradopo:
Bahasa sebagai suatu sistem tanda dalam teks kesastraan, tidakhanya menyaran pada sistem (tataran ) makna tingkat pertama ( first-order semiotic system) melainkan terlebih pada sistem makna tingkatkedua (second-order semiotic system).
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Semiotics represents a range of studies in art, literature, anthropology
and the mass media rather than an independent academic discipline. Those
involved in semiotics includes linguists, philosophers, psychologists,
sociologists, anthropologists, literary, aesthetic and media theorists,
psychoanalysts and educationalists. Beyond the most basic definition, there
is considerable variation amongst leading semioticians as to what semiotics
involves. It is not only concerned with (intentional) comrnunication but also
with our ascription of significance to anything in the world. Semiotics has
changed over time, since semioticians have sought to remedy weaknesses in
early semiotic approaches. Even with the most basic semiotic terms there are
multiple definitions.
Saussure's theory is related to the expansion of linguistic theory in
general. Therefore, the terms that are used for semiotic knowledge are
borrowed from the terms of linguistic. That is not only because Saussure who
has inspired them, but also when they develop semiotic theory, linguistic is
already expanding rapidly. Saussure saw linguistics as branch of "semiology":
Linguistics is only one branch of this general science (of semiology).The laws which semiology will discover will be laws applicable inlinguistics... As far as we are concerned...the linguistic problem is firstand foremost semiological... If one wishes to discover the true natureof language systems, one must first consider what they have incommon with all other systems of the same kind... In this way, light willbe thrown not only upon the linguistic problem. By considering rites,customs etc. as signs, it will be possible, we believe, to see them in anew perspective. The need will be felt to consider them assemiological phenomena and to explain them in terms of the laws ofsemiology. (Saussure 1983,16-17;'Saussure 1974, 16-17).1
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One of Saussure's theories that is used widely in literature is
syntagmatic and paradigmatic concept, it is done by Roland Barthes and
Tzvetan Todorov who classify the two concepts into syntaxes and semantic
aspect. In a short story / reading, the words are related to each other and
connected suitable with the language linearity. Moreover, outside the short
reading, words that have the association similarity in memory and become an
important part of each individual in the form of langue. The linear connection
is called syntagmatic connection, while the associative connection is called
paradigmatic connection. The syntagmatic and paradigmatic connection
can be often in fiction or poetry.
Dealing with a fictional literary work, we will see the connection
between signifier and signified. At first, we will see the formal aspect of the
work in the form of connection from words, sentences, paragraph and so on
until finally a full text is formed. That kind of connection is the connection
between signifier and signified, the connection of the whole elements. The
connection of words, sentences, paragraph or* others that can be seen in the
text is called in praesentia.
Every formal aspect, word and sentence, must be correlated with
meaning aspect - since it is not possible to have formal aspect (language)
without preceding the\ meaning concept. The connection between formal
aspect and meaning aspect is called associative connection, or in other word,
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the connection between the present element and the absent element. Word
and sentence can be seen in the text, while the meaning can only be
associated (br'bannot be seen).
C. The Theory of Socio-historical
Literature is a social institution, using its medium language, a social
creation. Such traditional literary devices as symbolism and metre are social
in their very nature. They are conventions and norms which could have arisen
only in society. But, furthermore, literature 'represents' life; and 'life' is, in large
measure, a social reality, even though the natural world and the inner or
subjective world of the individual have also been objects of literary' imitation'.
Literature is really not a reflection of the social process, but the essence, the
abridgement and summary of all history. The question how far literature is
actually determined by or dependent on its social setting, on social change
and development, is one which, in one way or another, will enter into all the
three divisions : the sociology of the writer, the social content of the work
themselves, and the influence of literature on society.
The writer of literary work is not only influenced by society, he
influences it. Art not merely reproduces life but also shapes it. Much the most
common approach to the relations of literature and society is the study of
works of literature as social documents, as assumed pictures of social reality.
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Used as a social document, literature can be made to yield the outlines of
social history.
Such studies seem of little value so long as they take it for granted that
literature is simply a mirror of life, a reproduction, and thus, obviously, a social
document.
The problem of 'literature and society' can obviously be put in different
terms, those of symbolic or meaningful relations : of consistency, harmony,
coherence, congruence, structural identity, stylistic analogy, or with whatever
term we want to designate the integration of a culture and the
interrelationship among the different activities of men.
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CHAPTER III
GENERAL AND DETAILED ANALYSIS
A. General Review
Grass
From Cornhuskers- ShenandoahPublished / written in 1918
By. Cart Sandburg (1878 -1976)
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.Shovel them under and let me work
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at GettysburgAnd pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.Shovel them under and let me work.Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor;
What place is this?
Where are we now?I am the grass. Let me work.
In this poem, Carl Sandburg describes grass as a simple plant that
grows to hide some important facts of the world in the past and the ugliness
of the land of the bloody war.
Carl Sandburg, as the author of the poem wants to tell us the good use
of grass, not as an ordinary plant that grows on the land but as a plant which
grows to cover the scary things of war that happened a long time ago and lost
so many lives. Without the grass, this world would be a bloody graveyard of
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rotting and rotten corpses. Sandburg represents grass as the nature healer or
as the world's band-aid for the horrible things that happened on the past. The
things that become terrible memories about war that will bring sadness and
regret in everyone's heart and the soldiers whom experienced the terrifying
wars and still alive until today also the people who remember it. The grass
also represents human behavior in facing the facts about the world they living
in. They become unaware and ignoring the important things that happened,
the kind of things they should remember. They are unable to recognize the
historical places (used to be the battle fields) where thousands of souls were
being sacrificed to win the places. The people who are unaware and
ignorance with these tragic memories are usually teenagers and people who
are busy with their own work and live since they live in the present and don't
know much information about the history of their land. They just take it for
granted that the place they are passing now already exists from a long time
ago. They never realize that those places can be passed freely now because
of the struggle of the soldiers. They were brave enough to join the arm forced
and fight against the enemies in the bloody battlefield without thinking that
they were sacrificing their lives. They just thought that they must fight to win
the place and be the person who will be remembered by all of the people and
their families because of their bravery and they also hoped their families
would be proud of them. To remember this, the government builds so many
monuments and museums. But only some people who are care enough to
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stop by, read and learn about the history through those meaningful
monuments.
B. Detailed Analysis
To get a deeper understanding of the poem "Grass" by Carl Sandburg,
the writer will analyze it by using the heuristic and hermeneutic reading. The
poem consists of three stanzas. It has no specific rhyme so it may call as a
free verse poem. In analyzing the poem, the writer will study it not only from
each stanza but also from each sentence. A poem is not a kind of literary
work that could be understood easily in the first reading. It should be read
over and over again. There is a message hidden in each word in a poem.
Even though it is just a simple word that we usually use in everyday
conversation, for example the word "grass". When we heard the word "grass"
we may consider it just as an ordinary word that we used to talk about in a
daily conversation but when the word "grass" is used as a title in a poem, it
will have a different meaning. For common people a poem may not mean
anything for them. They might think a poem is just a group of words that have
no deeper meaning. They will not realize the word "grass" as the title of this
poem can represent a lot of things. To proof this opinion, the writer will try to
analyze this poem as clear as possible so the message hidden in the word
"grass" and other words in the poem can be understood by the readers and it
makes us realize how a simple thing such "grass" can bring a big impact for
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the human's life. Like people always say : big thing always comes in a small
package.
Before analyzing the poem deeper, at first, we should classified the
type of the poem. The poem "Grass" can be concluded as narrative poetry.
The reason why this poem can be categorized as a narrative poetry because
a narrative poetry gives a verbal representation, in verse, of a sequence of
connected events and it is always told by a narrator. The narrator in this
poem is absolutely the grass since it is mentioned as a title of the poem. We
can also see another proof after we finished reading the poem. In the poem,
the word grass holds an important role in doing its duty to cover all the
ground. The grass also repeating the sentence / am the grass, so it is clearly
seen that the narrator of the poem is the grass itself.
A narrative poetry shows a verbal representation and a sequence of
connected events. It can be found, almost, in every line of the poem. The
poem includes some verbal representations like pile, shovel, work, coverand
asks. The poem also shows a sequence of connected events. From the
activities that can be found in the poem like pile the bodies high, shovel them
under, let me work, I cover all. If we analyze it further, we can see the
sequence of connected events. The people pile the bodies high and then they
shovel the bodies under the ground. After that, the grass wants the people to
let it work and it will cover all.
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First stanza
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo
Shovel them under and let me work
I am the grass; I cover all.
Heuristic reading
(they) pile the bodies (or corpses) (as) high (as possible) at (the battle places
of) Austerlitz and Waterloo, (they) shovel them (the bodies) under (the
ground) and let me work. I am the grass; I (will) cover all.
Hermeneutic reading
Pile the bodies high atAusteriitz and Waterloo
The title of this poem is "Grass". It is obvious that the main character in
the poem is the grass itself since it is given the ability to speak. In the first
line, it is showed that the people are piling the bodies high. The word "pile"
means number of things lying upon another. "The bodies" refers to the dead
bodies or corpses that spread around the land. The people want to put all the
dead bodies in one place and make it into a high pile. It mentions about a
high pile of dead bodies because they belong to the victims of the battle at
Austerlitz and Waterloo. Today, the name of Austerlitz and Waterloo might be
considered as an ordinary name of places. For some people, especially they
who live in that area, Austerlitz and Waterloo are the name of historical
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places, but not all the people can tell in detail about the tragic events that
caused so many soldiers from both sides lost their lives.
From the information that shows on the communication media, we can
see the facts of war. It is not about which side that wins or Ids, but it is all
about how many lives being lost during the battle. The longer the Rattle went
on, the more dead bodies lied around the land. We can imagine how plenty of
corpses that caused from those two battles in Austerlitz and Waterloo. Our
calculation may not stop at the number 100 because the result is more than
that. So now we can imagine in our mind, how high it is the pile of dead
bodies from those two battle places when they are put all together in one
place.
Shovel them under and let me work
In the second line, it is showed another activity. After the people put all
the soldiers in one place, they are shoveled under the ground. The word
"shovel" in this line means to burry the corpses under the ground. Burying a
dead body is a custom in some places in treating dead bodies. For example,
the Himalayas have the sky burials, where they (the people who live in that
area) allow the vultures (large bird, usually with head and neck almost bare of
feathers, that lives on the flesh of dead animals) to eat the corpses.
The next sentence continuous with "let me work". The meaning of the
sentence is the grass wants the people let the grass do its duty. As soon as
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the people finished burying all the dead soldiers, the grass will start to do its
work. The word "work" here, does not mean that the grass will do human's
work but it means that the grass will start to grow on the ground where the
dead bodies were shoveled under it.
/ am the grass; I cover all
In this line, the grass tries to convince all of the people that the grass is
the main character here. It is the one that will cover all the ground after the
people piled and shoveled all the dead soldiers under it.
Hermeneutic reading
And pile them high at Gettysburg
The second stanza starts with the same line as the first stanza. In this
line, the people also make a pile of dead bodies. The difference is in the first
stanza, the people make a high pile of dead bodies at Austerlitz and
Waterloo, while in the second stanza, the people make a high pile of dead
bodies at Gettysburg. There was a terrible thing happened in Gettysburg on
1863. It was a three days-battle, that caused so many damages. It was the
bloodiest single battle of the war, resulting in over 51,000 soldiers killed,
wounded, captured or missing. The Soldiers' National Cemetery at
Gettysburg was dedicated on November 19, 1863, when President Abraham
Lincoln delivered his immortal Gettysburg Address. The cemetery contains
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more than 7,000 interments including over 3,500 from the Civil War. Post-
battle efforts preserved small portions of the battlefield as a memorial to the
Union victory. On February 11, 1895, congressional legislation was signed to
establish Gettysburg National Military Park, as a memorial dedicated) to the
armies that fought this great battle. Gettysburg National Military Park
incorporates nearly 6,000 acres, with 26 miles of park roads and over 1,400
monuments, markers, and memorials.
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun
In this second line, the people once again do the same thing. The
people put ail the dead soldiers all together in one place. The dead soldiers
belong to the victims of the battles in Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under
and let me work.
As we can see, there is a word reduplication in the poem. This
sentence is already written in the second line and now it is repeated in the
sixth line. It shows that the grass wants to emphasize its desire. The people
pile the bodies and shovel them under the ground as soon as possible so the
grass can do its work after that. The grass-realizes that it has a work to do
and it wants to start it as fast as it can.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor
The next sentence is telling about time that passed by from days,
weeks, months and finally turns into years. From two years grows into ten
years. It shows that the horrible things that happened .in those five places,
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Austerlitz; Waterloo; Gettysburg; Ypres and Verdun, are already become a
sad memory in people minds and they who remember it. This is a very
American view of history. For the Americans, things that has happened
yesterday will eventually be a memory as things that happened hundred of
years ago. Some cultures see things that happened hundreds of years ago as
things that happened yesterday. They nurse wounds centuries old. It means
that they keep in the mind or think about the tragic memories of wars for a
long time. It also can be considered that they will not forget about the
heartache even though it is already passed for centuries.
When some of those people, who live outside the America, immigrated
to America, they were quickly told to leave that behavior in the old country.
Because they now live in America where old wounds are not important, they
consider it as something that already has happened in the past and there is
nothing they can do to change it, just let it be a memory. As the proverb goes
let bygone be bygone. The outsiders or the immigrant should follow the
custom since they decided to live in America. The author of this poem wrote
the sentence two years, ten years. He uses the word year instead of
centuries as a time signal. Whereas, actually, some of the battle happened
centuries ago like the battle of Austerlilz and Waterloo. The reason he
chooses the word year is because he wants to emphasize that it takes only
two until ten years for the grass to grow and cover all the ground where the
battle takes place.
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Since the grass is a kind of wild plant that can live even without a good
care from the human so it is not a difficult thing for the grass to cover up all
the land with its beauty. The grass will then successfully hide all the wounds
of wars until there is no trace left that might remind us of the war.
The sentence is ended with and passengers ask the conductor. The
word passengers in the poem can be referred to the passengers of a land
vehicle like bus or train. When they pass the land, they only see grassy land.
They do not have any clue of what has happened in the past on that land.
They will never believe that centuries ago the land they are passing now was
a place of a bloodiest battle. It was a cracked land, where the missiles, guns
and dead bodies from young soldiers were lying all over the place. They can
never wonder that the peaceful green land used to be red and full of horrors
because of the blood that shed from the brave young soldiers who fought to
win the land.
What place is this? Where are we now?
These are the main questions that the passengers ask to the
conductor. They are very curious about the land they are passing now. They
know nothing about the place, they do not know the name of the place and
the location they are passing now. They don't realize that it is a sacred place
for their country. The place is full of tragic memories. The passengers can not
imagine how scary it was at that time to be in the middle of a chaos situation.
Everybody ran in the midst of gun fire trying to protect their land from the
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enemy. They thought they had to win the battle in every way. They didn't
scare of loosing their own lives as long as they could protect their land and
won the battle. They wanted to be the soldiers that their families could be
proud of and the country always remembered them forever. The young
soldiers went to the battle field to sacrifice their body and soul. They did it for
the sake of the country. If they finally died in the battle, they wouldn't regret it
because they had done their duty. We have to admit that the grass has done
a very marvelous work in hiding the scary facts of the war as the horrible
scenes of war are already replaced by a peaceful landscape.
Third stanza
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Heuristic reading
I am the grass. Let me (do) my work (or duty).
Hermeneutic reading
/ am the grass
Once again, there is a word reduplication in the poem. This sentence
is already written in the third line and now it is repeated in the tenth line. The
intention of the author of the poem writes the same sentence because he
wants to emphasize the presence of grass as the speaker in the poem.
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Let me work.
The grass asks the people to let it do its work. The grass realizes its
duty as a grass. It wants to make the people believe in its ability in covering
the bare ground. It wants the people to consider the grass not just as an
ordinary and unimportant little plant but as a simple plant with a heavy duty. It
is said as "a heavy duty" because the grass has an eternal work. It will
continuously grow and cover the ground until there is no ground left without
grass growing on it. There is no reason for the grass to stop its work unless
people make it stop by mowing the area.
The author of this poem picks the word "grass" as the title of his poem
because he thinks it fits his main idea about the poem. His main idea is to
show a great work from a little plant that grows slowly and continuously in
covering the land. But the author, as a journalist, wants to give another point
of view from war. He wrote this poem as a reflection of the First World War to
the people's mind. Carl Sandburg wrote and published the poem Grass soon
after the last battle of First World War ended, which was the battle of Verdun
in 1918. There are several names of places involved ih the First World War,
but Sandburg only mentioned five battle places in his poem. He chose those
five places since he was interested in those places. It does not mean that the
rest of the battle places are not important enough but he chooses them
because those places are the places where the battle costs so many lives.
Among all of the battle places in the First World War, the places mentioned
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all" as in the third line "I am the grass; I cover all". In the fourth and fifth line,
Sandburg named three more bloody battles. Gettysburg had civil war against
each other while Ypres and Verdun were the sites of the first use of chemical
warfare. These battles created much destruction and many lives were lost.
These battles are all very significant and every person is expected to
remember them.
However, line seven until ten state that grass has done such a
marvelous job of hiding the bloody battlefield so that passengers riding in a
bus or train crossing country are unable to recognize these sites as historical
monuments. They are unaware that thousands of lives were sacrificed so that
they can pass through the side freely. These people are so clueless that they
must ask the conductor what these grassy sites are.
The last two lines of the poem is the grass trying to convince readers
to let it do its job of covering wounds. The grass wants to conceal the dirty
side of mankind in order to allow human beings to continue their lives instead
of dwelling on the deformed past. Sandburg's message in the poem is to tell
readers that these events are important to the foundation of civilization
throughout the world, but they are not events that should be commemorated
by displaying the corpses of deceased heroes in public eye. The grass serves
as a symbol of concealment as well as beauty. The grass, physically, is
pleasing to the eye. It serves as a covering sheet for the previous events or
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struggle of young soldiers to protect and win their beloved land. These tragic
memories should be remembered by the people to remind them that it is not
easy to get the land they are passing now. As mentioned in the seventh line
two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor, the word year
emphasizes the time that has already passed. The sentence informs us how
fast it is the people can forget about the history. People these days tend to
take it for granted for what they have today. They have no idea of the blood
that had been shed in those places and they continue on their journey, just as
the grass does. They do not remember the struggle of the soldiers back in the
past in order to give the freedom to the people to pass the site.
The poem is a commentary on the futility of life, the prominence of
nature and the mindlessness of mankind. It tells of how even the most
extreme and significant events in history are eventually forgotten. We are
bom into this world, we live our lives and then we die, but the earth continues
its cycle, turning everything under, covering everything in its progress.
All in all, the poem Grass may give more than one meaning. It
depends on how we see the poem. So it is based on our own point of view.
Grass can represent the ignorance of human beings, the cover of the wounds
of war and as a simple plant with an eternal duty. No matter what we can
interpret from the symbol grass, the important thing is we cannot neglect
small thing because it may bring big impact to our life.
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CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
A. Conclusion
The poem Grass was written and published in 1918 by the writer and
journalist. Carl Sandburg. Though its references are European, Sandburg's
poem is distinctively American in its rhythm and language. It is published at
the same year as the last battle of First World War, when the slaughter at
Ypres and Verdun was still fresh to people's minds, ended. Sandburg wrote
this poem to remind us of the battles and the damages it costed. At Verdun
there were 362.000 French and 337.000 German casualties, at Ypres a
quarter of a million died on each side.
In his poem Grass, Sandburg uses grass as a symbol to represent the
connection between the nature and mankind. It tells how a terrible and painful
scar of war can be healed by time as the grass grows covering the battle
places and makes the people hardly permit to imagine that those places now
so quiet was hell many years before. But the poem may have another
meaning, it can represent the ignorance of mankind of the important facts
happened years before. They do not realize how many lives sacrificed just to
let the people pass the places.
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Although inarguably the war gave birth to near infinite examples of
heroism and compassion, there was also indescribable and unrelenting and
destruction on a mammoth scale. In the Gettysburg National alone, over
3.500 lay in rest who perished during the desperate of this war. That so many
returned to these fields after such loss, seeking to honour their dead, speaks
to the need to and learn from this moment in our history.
We honour those who, with knowledge of what was to come, still
chose i toward into battles destined to tear apart men, lives and mercilessly
formerly whole and happy families. We learn, we remember, and we struggle
to grasp, even if only in a small degree, what led boys, men, fathers, brothers
and sons to fight and die in the fragile yet firm hope that i would prevail. In
other word, we try to remember even only a little reason for all the boys, men,
fathers, husbands, brothers and son I did in the battle is not for a useless
cause. They did at in order win their country.
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n.d., Literary Terms and Criticism, n.p.
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