Swing Valley Poem Analysis
Pursue of happiness Contentment can help people move forward, it is also a way of freezing time to connect to the past. To compromise to happiness is hardly possible. However in the poem Swing Valley, and the excerpt from Home Place, the speakers are able to find joy by means of nostalgia. They seem to pursue happiness by recollecting favourable memories from the past, and being in the physical reminiscence that shapes their past. Through the development of the character, Ronald, and the speaker from Swing valley, we are able to apprehend how recollection memories can lead to happiness.
When it comes to ecstasy, it’s not a word in Ronald’s dictionary. Though, as he revisits his child-hood memories, everything suddenly becomes clear. As Ronald was looking for a companionship in life, he jumped from the frying pan and into the fire. “’I can’t stand it. I can’t sleep there no longer. ’” The regret and sorrow he’s feeling made him longing for joy. Through further understanding of Ronald, we realise that he is feeling nostalgic towards his past, his childhood, and his true passion – creating model airplanes. Primarily, he pursued for happiness as he married Darlene, out of lust, and loneliness.
For what seemed to Ronald was unattainable, he later discovers that joy was something that actually could be reached by recalling what he loved, rather than what he thought he loved. He found himself under the silhouettes of his model air planes that covered his walls. He found himself understanding the concept of delight. He found himself having minimal interest in anything other than the model air planes that he loved even as a young man. Simple moments such as gravitational loss can help us discover happiness in the present. Ordinary may have different meanings to different individuals.
Some ordinary flashes of nostalgia have helped people renew connections of the past to the present. The descriptiveness of Frank Gaspar’s Swing Valley shows the readers how much a nostalgic event can sink so deeply to one’s memory. Even the precise description of “still sitting on the knot, his hands clutching the rope as the bitter end trailed down like a plume of smoke. ” The speaker has strong feelings of the tense atmosphere that they were in, as he relates it to the moment of release. In life, this is a metaphor of that moment of finally achieving the goal you’ve trying to accomplish for years.
As the speaker recalls that moment, he immediately thinks of the time when he’s free of gravity. It wasn’t just a rope swing. As Ronald finds joy, he wishes that he “should never have left. ” Regretting how much happier life should have been. The speaker from Swing Valley finds happiness through remembering the wonderful memories of the past and reflects the present with it. These characters discovers the pursuit of happiness as they come across moments of nostalgia, and as they’re longing for their past to compromise their happiness in the present.
