Sunday, March 30, 2008

#238- "Riddle"

Analysis of Speaker/Rhyme/Meter:
Speaker: The speaker of this poem is a victim of the atrocities of the Holocaust. This is made apparent in the third stanza of the poem "My friend Fritz Nova lost his father-" (9), "My friend Lou Abrahms lost his brother" (11). By referring to these victims as his friends, the speaker is able to give the poem a better sense of reality. Like all Holocaust stories, those told by people who actually experienced it are more real, more memorable, and have a much greater impact on their listeners than the accounts found in textbooks and factual information sources. For this reason, the first-person perspective of this poem, although not obvious throughout the entire poem, makes it much more effective in making an impact on the reader.
Rhyme: There is an ABCB rhyme scheme in all but the fifth and sixth stanzas of the poem, the eight lines of which all begin with the same two words "and some" (17-24). In four of the remaining six stanzas that rhyme, one of the words in the pair of rhyming words is "Jews." Each of the lines containing this word is "Who killed the Jews?" The title of the poem is "Riddle," suggesting a mystery, or something that is questionable or unknown. One of the other rhymes in the poem is "engineer" (6) with "Albert Speer" (7). The riddle of the poem is obviously the riddle of who was responsible for the killing of the Jews during the Holocaust, but the other riddle contained in this is who specifically, meaning which of Adolf Hitler's Nazi officials, facilitated this mass genocide? By rhyming one of the names of a Nazi official, and beginning all the lines of the stanza with "not I," the poem expresses how denial of responsibility for murderous and permissive actions was an enormous part of the Holocaust that enabled it to continue for so many years without persecution. By not rhyming the lines of the fourth and fifth stanzas, the stanzas that list the various duties of Nazi officers at the concentration camps, duties that involved doing their part in the extermination of Jews, the poem portrays these jobs as silent, trying to make them as little known by outsiders as possible in order to prevent persecution of the officers for their actions. It places further emphasis on the denial aspect of the question of responsibility "Who killed the Jews?"
Meter: Although each of the eight stanzas has four lines of relatively even length, they are not all the same structurally and rhythmically. The first, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth lines have a similar meter pattern and a common idea of the losses and horrific experiences that the Jews endured during the Holocaust, such as "[...] a crate of gold teeth" (1), "[...] Fritz Nova lost his father-" (9), "David Nova swallowed gas" (13), "Some smelled the smoke" (24), and "[...] gold, [...] shoes, [...] skin" (29-31). The remaining stanzas, the second, fifth, and sixth, have similar rhythm and meter amongst themselves, unlike the previously mentioned stanzas with their own different meter pattern. These three stanzas have the rhythm of stress being placed on the first two words of the line, "not I" in the second stanza and "and some" in the fifth and sixth stanzas. While the previously mentioned stanzas focus more on the victims of the Holocaust, the latter mentioned stanzas focus more on the Nazi officials who caused them to become victims of genocide. By giving these stanzas a more pronounced rhythm than the stanzas focused on the victims, it makes it obvious that those who participated in the Holocaust were most concerned with covering their own tracks and denying all faults than they were concerned with their victims having a voice and an identity.
Analysis of 2 Literary Devices:
Personification: Personification is not used until the last stanza of the poem, but in just these four lines, this device contributes significantly to the overall meaning of the poem. The three things that are personified as having memories, the stars, the sun, and the moon, are elements of nature that are always present in the sky, no matter what the conditions are on Earth. These three celestial objects are present in the most beautiful and the most horrific situations on Earth, and they oversee both situations alike. By personifying them as being the only ones that can always remember the atrocities and evils of the Holocaust, it contributes to the meaning of the title of the poem, "Riddle." The stars, the sun, and the moon may be able to remember the events that happened in the concentration camps, but the last line, the final question "But who killed the Jews?" still remains a riddle, a mystery to humans on Earth who were not there to witness it. One thing the stars, the sun, and the moon cannot do as humans is answer this ultimate question.
Repetition: The three phrases in this poem that are significantly repeated are "not I" (4-7), "and some" (15-24), and "Who killed the Jews?" (4, 12, 28, 32). The first two repeated elements emphasize the secrecy and denial of the aggressors of the Holocaust as well as the enormity of their actions involved in creating the machine that killed so many millions of Jews. "Not I" (4-7) obviously stresses the fact that the Nazi officials want the world to believe that the genocide was not their fault, and they refuse to admit to being the answer to the question "Who killed the Jews?" "And some" (15-24) refers also to the actions of the Nazi officials during the Holocaust, stressing the reality that so much was done to allow this mass murder of Jews to happen, despite the fact that none took the responsibility for this long list of actions such as standing guard (15), dropping the pellets (18), and clearing the rails (24). "Who killed the Jews?" gives meaning to the title of the poem. Despite how many times the answer to the question is repeated with the names of those who committed the crimes "[...] Adolf Eichmann,/[...] Albert Speer" (7-8) and their multitude of duties they fulfilled in taking part in the genocide, the repetition of this question expresses how we still aren't, and perhaps will never be, able to make the perpetrators take responsibility for the murder of the Jews.
Reflection:
After visiting the barracks of the Nazi concentration camp Dachau back in December when I went to Germany, the images in this poem as well as numerous other literary works I have read about the Holocaust, have much more of an impact on me. The mention of specific names of Nazis in the poem, Adolf Eichmann and Albert Speer, and the recollection of seeing their pictures on the walls in the museum at the camp, made the poem so much more effective in the poet's use of specific allusions to historical figures and places. Out of the four poems I chose to analyze, I enjoyed analyzing this one the most because I was most able to see the underlying meanings of the more subtle literary elements such as the rhyme scheme and personification used by the poet.