In "People Getting Divorced" Lawrence Ferlingehtti uses the Analogy to connect actual events and objects with indirectly related happenings. A person forced to live in his car is forced to take all of his possessions with them; uprooted, without the comfort once had of knowing where their belongings belong, and where they will always be. A divorced person is without roots, without confidence and stability. One begins to see themselves no more grounded then an errant shoe, so easily lost. "Wondering what happened, to everyone and everything.." Suddenly nothing is certain, nothing is in its place. You question your values and choices.
He compares a pair of shoes to a married couple; one cannot be independent of the other. He wonders if the lost shoe can find a mate, sounds a bit weird, how likely is that? Perhaps when we got married we too were so; like a pair of shoes, compatible for non other. But now the shoe is on the wrong foot. Irreversible differences render the couple as compatible as two random shoes.
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I found this story to be very compelling because as someone who has watched people close to them get divorced these things become aware to us, even if we're not the one going through it. It is true, nothing is certain anymore, you don't know if your coming or going and people question everything that they had with that person and if they were ever meant to be in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you're kicking the extended metaphor of the shoe, and also the loss of "home"/stable place; what "values and choices" do you see being questioned? Last comment interesting as well, though not an image in the poem--it's not the show being on the wrong foot, but the sense of loss, separation... aslo, don't forget the sedcond part of the poem, which gives us something else/more... see comments on Andrea's as well
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