Essay about The Dragon Can't Dance by Earl Lovelace

knows that she is starving for true love and exploits that weakness to achieve his goal.

This contrasts sharply with the poetic devices used to emphasise the extent of the violence on the women in ‘A kind of love some say’, ‘Hard impact. Then swollen lids’. This shows us the impact of the love and the relationship is weighing her down. Love here is shown as a burden, which needs to be thrown away, ‘Of lost romance, but hurt’.

And when «she knows it's happening: that thing, that connection» between them, when she dances for him and «making him fall in love with her» she says to him: «We've got all we need. We don't need love. Don't diminish yourself – don't reveal yourself as a sentimental sap. You're dying to do it, but don't. Let's not lose this.» (p. 231). She knows she's driving him nuts, she knows that her rejection of his feelings makes him want to attach to her sentimentaly even more. She dances for him and teaches him what life really is. She – a 34-year-old illiterate janitor, teaches him – colledge proffessor, ex-dean, a member of highest rank of society class, what life is all about.

The use of connotative words in this piece is the foundation of this poem and it provides an idea of what this poem is going to be about. In the first stanza he describes the woman as “lovely in her bones,” showing that her beauty is more than skin deep comparing her virtues to a goddess of “only gods should speak.” In the second stanza, the reader can see and feel the love between the two people. The woman taught him how to "Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand," showing that she was the teacher in the relationship and taught him things he thought he never needed to know. The speaker shows how when they are together, she was “the sickle” and he was “the rake” showing that this woman taught him what love is.

In lines six through nine the speaker says,”She was staring at me with her eyes, her breasts still sturdy, her thigh warming mine.” This sentence shows how the speaker began discovering his love for the first time with her(Harper 6-9). The speaker signifies that the woman is healthy and young when he refers to her still having sturdy breasts. The author uses imagery to represent the connection a person feels when they share a warm sensation of touch. When the speaker realizes she is staring at him he begins to wonder how long she had been staring at him and if she loved him.

The narrator is deeply infatuated with Mangan’s sister and she is always on his mind. He states, “Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom.” (Joyce 2). The quote talks about the narrator’s smitten feelings for a girl only referred to as Mangan’s sister. It is evident that she is always on his mind and she naturally flows through his mind unconsciously. He is also very grief-stricken at times, which surprises him. The fact that Mangan’s sister does not have a name clearly reveals that the narrator is in love with what she represents, physical beauty. This is something rather mutual for any adolescent boy experiencing sexual beauty for the first time. He is stuck in his own little world of infatuation where she is always present and he also feels sad as he cannot convey his feelings of love. Also, after the narrator decided that he will bring something for Mangan’s sister as a gift from the bazaar, Araby, he is overcome with joy. He states, “What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school.” (Joyce 2). The quote

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity.”

After Erec wins the sparrow hawk competition, the couple experiences an attraction for one another through the eyes. Chretien writes, “He [Erec] could not gaze at her [Enide] enough; the more he looked at her, the more she pleased him…But the damsel, for her part, looked at the knight no less than he looked at her, with favorable eye and loyal heart, in eager emulation (56).” The way they gaze upon each other without exchanging words reveals the physical but disconnected relationship typical of courtly love. Contrary to troubadour lyrics that typically describe an attraction to the lady though a man’s gaze, Chretien’s emphasis on presenting Enide’s gaze suggests her importance to their relationship. By contrasting their stereotypical superficial courtly love attraction with the untraditional emphasis on Enide’s presence and involvement in the attraction between the two, Chretien challenges the courtly love ideal that suggests that women’s chivalric role is simply to be pursued and he lays the foundation for her importance in the development of the couple’s relationship which he will further

All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked , burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth (39).

When the narrator first encounters the girl, his friend's older sister, he can only see her silhouette in the “light from the half-opened door”. This is the beginning of his infatuation with the girl. After his discovery, he is plagued by thoughts of the girl which make his daily obligations seem like “ugly, monotonous, child's play”. He has become blinded by the light. The narrator not only fails to learn the name of his “girl”, he does not realize that his infatuation with a woman considerably older than himself is not appropriate. He relishes in his infatuation, feeling “thankful [he] could see so little” while he thinks of the distant “lamp or lighted window” that represents his girl. The narrator is engulfed by the false light that is his futile love.

His “unlined” face has yet to have the heat of a forge baking the sweat off his face and cracking the skin transitioning him into a man. A man that needs to learn the craft of forgetting the burdens everyday life gives him. The line, “eyes amber as the resin from trees too young to be cut.”(ll 10-11). reinforces that he has to grow and be ‘seasoned’ before he is truly ready to make the transition and tackle the craft of drinking until numb. These lines like an artist waiting to sculpt their stone into something else. The reference of the eyes gives a relation to the difference of her father’s young and hopeful eyes that have not seen what her grandfathers have. This is important as it gives the wisdom and long struggle that separates the apprentice from the master. Eyes have also been described as windows to the soul and the way she relates her father’s eyes as young and translucent that have yet to meet the destructive force that well in her grandfather’s eyes.

“Later that night when Thomas roller over and lurched into her, she would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers” this proves the point that she cannot even express herself sexually because she does not feel as if she has control in the situation.  Her mind wanders elsewhere, in a place where she is her own master, instead of what is reality. Additionally, the main character’s husband shows some selfish tendencies in the fact that he may not notice his wife’s discontentment with his affection.  However, this may also present the lack of communication between man and wife and therefore may cause a sense of isolation from her husband.

It not only threatens, but also breaks through. Betrayed by love once in her life, she nevertheless seeks it in the effort to fill the lonely void; thus, her promiscuity. But to adhere to her tradition and her sense of herself as a lady, she cannot face this sensual part of herself. She associates it with the animalism of Stanley's lovemaking and terms it “brutal desire”. She feels guilt and a sense of sin when she does surrender to it, and yet she does, out of intense loneliness. By viewing sensuality as brutal desire she is able to disassociate it from what she feels is her true self, but only at the price of an intense inner conflict. Since she cannot integrate these conflicting elements of desire and gentility, she tries to reject the one, desire, and live solely by the other. Desperately seeking a haven she looks increasingly to fantasy. Taking refuge in tinsel, fine clothes, and rhinestones, and the illusion that a beau is available whenever she wants him, she seeks tenderness and beauty in a world of her own making.

What elements in the story “The Dragon” represent the Freudian Conscious mind? 
Make sure to provide quotes and references from the story to support your answer. (3 Marks)
Throughout the short story, it is evident that at times the psychiatrist retreats to his conscious state often. This is shown when the psychiatrist unwittingly sits in Kirk’s chair and looked at his office as if it were his first time there. Unknowingly the psychiatrist had “moved around to the other side of the circle and lowered himself into Kirk’s chair”. This shows his conscious mind making decisions revealing his true feelings, that the psychiatrist deeply relates to Kirk and can easily put himself in Kirk’s shoes.

"All this erotic behavior of mine is indirect: I prowl about her, touching her face, caressing her body, without entering her or finding the urge to do so. ... But with this woman it is as if there is no interior, only a surface across which I hunt back and forth seeking entry. Is this how her torturers felt hunting their secret, whatever they thought it was?" - pg.43.