Drunk on the Earth

Once again, Dickinson's poem is my favorite. I find Dickinson's volte-face from "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" to "I taste a liquor never brewed" particularly interesting. The emotional tones of the two poems are startlingly different. Whereas "Funeral" is gravely serious and rather morbid, "Liquor" is nearly the exact opposite, stating her joy and euphoric reaction to the beauty of nature. I think the aspect of Dickinson's writing which I enjoy the most is its uniqueness. In "Funeral," the unique aspects were the use of solely auditory imagery and the unique perspective of the speaker. In "Liquor," Dickinson creates a rather unique analogy between the effects of the beauty of nature and of alcohol. The speaker describes herself as "Inebriate of Air" (5) and "Debauchee of Dew" (6). Bees are drunken, and Butterflies give up the alcohol of nature, while the speaker says the she "shall but drink the more" (12). This unique description of the speaker's love of nature is a rather fresh change from the gentle imagery of other nature poems. The speaker does not simply appreciate nature; she wants to lose herself within its beauty.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall...

“‘How about Vienna?’

‘Not so good, Jake. Not so good. It seemed better than it was.’

‘How do you mean?’ I was getting glasses and a siphon.

‘Tight, Jake. I was tight.’

‘That’s strange. Better have a drink.’

Bill rubbed his forehead. ‘Remarkable thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t know how it happened. Suddenly it happened.’

‘Last long?’

‘Four days, Jake. Lasted just four days.’”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 77

This passage reminded me of another observation that I have made while reading this novel: it seems that every character in this novel is either drunk or on their way to being drunk. Wherever two or three are gathered, there alcohol is in the midst of them. Now I understand that there is nothing wrong with adults drinking alcohol, and I am not condemning it. What I am noticing, however, is that each person consumes far more than what would be considered safe by today’s standards. Hemingway makes it seem that the bottles and glasses are emptying within minutes of each other. Considering that alcoholic drinks likely were much stronger in 1920s France than in 2010 America, where the alcohol content has likely been weakened for economic and health reasons, the fact that each person is consuming bottle after bottle is rather distressing, especially because none of them seem to have much control over their actions while “tight.”

Perhaps this was just the atmosphere du jour back then, but I have another theory, as well. It seems that Hemingway progresses the plot most when his characters are drunk. Perhaps Hemingway is simply using alcohol as a literary crutch.