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Examples Of Transcendentalism In Maggie And Molly And May

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E. E. Cummings was heavily influenced by the transcendentalist movement. Many of his themes stem from his inclination to the philosophy of transcendentalism. The search for self and the individual who looks towards nature for symbolic answers all come from the individualistic belief that transcendentalists celebrate (Hart). In Cummings’ poem “maggie and milly and molly and may,” he elaborates on his theme of self-discovery and portrays himself through the four girls mentioned in the title. After reading through the poem, there are a few things that you can point out right from the start. Like a nursery rhyme, the sounds and rhythms in the poem first attract its audience with its repeated “m” consonants and its dactylic meter (Saunders). The …show more content…

A starfish has five limbs, and in this poem, they are described as “five languid fingers.” These five fingers remind the audience of their own hand. Therefore, Milly is befriending herself and looking at herself from an outside, objective point of view. Indirectly, Cummings is trying to tell the audience that to further achieve self-discovery, you have to look at yourself from someone else’s shoes. How you may see yourself could be extremely different from how others see you, like how, in the next couplet, Molly views a crab as a “horrible thing.” In this fourth couplet, a crab, which is characterized as “a horrible thing,” chases Molly. The crab can be identified as Molly’s fears, following her as it moves in a very unconventional manner. Returning to the indirect presentation of Cummings, the crab also represents the nightmares in his life, or the challenges that he had to face in search of his identity (Hart). He might be instructing his audience that there are things that one dislikes when one looks back and reflects on his or her past, and that these discomforting memories are one’s fears that must be faced to further achieve self-discovery

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