When I was reading "The Cage" I kept thinking about one of our first days of class when we talked about Irish stereotypes and how everyone was a little bit hesitant to mention drinking. And I think this poem is definitely the opposite, blatantly making the connection between a "traditional Irishman" and drinking "until he reached the only element he felt at home in".
I also thought it was interesting how he makes drunkenness a place, an even further, a cage. He makes it seem as though Brooklyn is such an unhappy place, at least for his father, that he would rather put himself in a cage than actually just "be" alive there. I thought that was really interesting, especially in regards to how we have been dealing with the concept of place thus far in the semester.
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I'm surprised that I didn't make the connection between the Irish stereotype of drinking and the father's alcoholism. When I read I didn't think of him as a drunk Irish man, just a man with a lot of sorrows to drown and alcohol being the only thing to drown them in. I think the fact that alcoholism may or may not be the norm in Ireland definitely adds to the stereotypical view for outsiders, especially when he says "until he reached the only element he felt at home in". However I think that it also takes away from the stereotype somewhat because we are given the background of the father's struggle, providing a reason for his drinking other than the place of his birth.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the drunkenness itself was the reference for the cage metaphor. The way I had perceived it was that Brooklyn was the cage for the father and alcohol was his only escape. However I could be wrong, depending on how the author wanted to depict his father's experience.
Upon first reading this poem I thought it was a commentary on alcoholism too. But after reading the other sections in class, I think the poem has a lot to say about the oppressive atmosphere of Brooklyn and America. Montague's descriptions of Ireland's rolling hills and winding paths is juxtaposed with his mention of the dark subway tunnels of Brooklyn. This suggests that the father's alcoholism is a product of the malaise he experiences while in Brooklyn.
ReplyDeleteMontague states that his father acted as a "tradiitonal Irishman" by drinking himself into a state in which he "felt at home in." ALthough Montegue's father romanticizes Ireland, he left it for a better life in America. However, Montague's father has been met with poverty and hard labor in an uncomfortable work enviornment in America. Because of this he is caught between two homelands, yet he cannot thrive or be completely content in either.
His alcohol use likely is a poor coping mechanism for dealing with these feelings of alienation. And that use of alcohol as a coping mechanism could be what causes Montague to label him a "tradiitonal Irishman."