Speech on Self-Reflection
Speech on Self-Reflection
Often when one embarks on a journey, one does not only encounter the hardships and experiences the physical side of the journey offers. People experience journeys in varied different ways. A journey is an act of travelling from one place to another. The texts I have chosen to express the complex and varied ways one experience journeys are the poems ‘Journey of the Magi’ and ‘Of Eurydice’, the novel Emma by Jane Austen and a visual text.
T.S Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’ is the speakers recount and self reflection of the Three Wise Men’s journey to the birth of Christ. In the poem the speaker uses descriptive language to portray the hardships encountered during the Magi’s tough physical journey. The difficulty of the inner journey is conveyed when the taunts of the people they come across and their own doubts leave them wandering if “this was all folly.” This line shows the voices going through their minds which suggest that they’re changing roads on their inner journey.
In the end of the poem the speaker concludes his recount of the journey with a rhetorical question, “Were we lead all this way for/ Birth or Death?” The speaker uses the technique of the rhetorical question to emphasise how in the end the question can only be answered by the speakers own self reflection. This conveys the inner struggle of the speaker and the Magi’s inner journey has not come to an end because the question is still not solved.
‘Of Eurydice’ by Ivan Lalic is also about the speakers evaluation on his journey to the underworld to save his love, Eurydice. The idea of the varied experiences of a journey is conveyed when the speaker has failed in rescuing Eurydice. Near the end of the poem the speaker starts to reflect on his journey and realises the many things he has learnt about himself. In this poem the underworld is expressed as a place where it is beyond the living and a, “darkness devoid of time.”
“Afraid and hideously enriched,” This oxymoron conveys
Often when one embarks on a journey, one does not only encounter the hardships and experiences the physical side of the journey offers. People experience journeys in varied different ways. A journey is an act of travelling from one place to another. The texts I have chosen to express the complex and varied ways one experience journeys are the poems ‘Journey of the Magi’ and ‘Of Eurydice’, the novel Emma by Jane Austen and a visual text.
T.S Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’ is the speakers recount and self reflection of the Three Wise Men’s journey to the birth of Christ. In the poem the speaker uses descriptive language to portray the hardships encountered during the Magi’s tough physical journey. The difficulty of the inner journey is conveyed when the taunts of the people they come across and their own doubts leave them wandering if “this was all folly.” This line shows the voices going through their minds which suggest that they’re changing roads on their inner journey.
In the end of the poem the speaker concludes his recount of the journey with a rhetorical question, “Were we lead all this way for/ Birth or Death?” The speaker uses the technique of the rhetorical question to emphasise how in the end the question can only be answered by the speakers own self reflection. This conveys the inner struggle of the speaker and the Magi’s inner journey has not come to an end because the question is still not solved.
‘Of Eurydice’ by Ivan Lalic is also about the speakers evaluation on his journey to the underworld to save his love, Eurydice. The idea of the varied experiences of a journey is conveyed when the speaker has failed in rescuing Eurydice. Near the end of the poem the speaker starts to reflect on his journey and realises the many things he has learnt about himself. In this poem the underworld is expressed as a place where it is beyond the living and a, “darkness devoid of time.”
“Afraid and hideously enriched,” This oxymoron conveys