Human Suffering in the Midst of Progress

¶ … Human Suffering in the Midst of Progress in the Works of EE Cummings & Mark Rothko

At the turn of the 20th century, American culture has flourished significantly, especially with the emergence of important fields of discipline that evoke individualism and free expression in works of art created by American artists. This phenomenon is especially evident after World War II, where the conflict among the world's nations had affected the psyche of American society and nation, one of the major players in the recently concluded war. After WWII, different lifestyles have emerged in the American society: consumerism, urbanism, and hedonism. These lifestyles gave birth to individualism and freedom of expression among people, especially now that the mass media made it possible for the society to exchange and extend messages and information to people located in different areas. However, despite these developments in American life, people have initially become disillusioned and disoriented about life, mainly due to the adverse effects of the war, which resulted to millions of deaths of people's lives and destruction of the physical environment of societies from all over the world.

This paper discusses how the theme of disillusionment and disorientation in the American society prevailed in the works of American artists, particularly in the realm of visual arts and literature. This paper studies and analyzes comparatively the work of the poet e. e. cummings and the painter Mark Rothko, and explain through their works how individualism and expressionism became the ideologies that helped illustrate the state of human suffering in the painting "Gethsemane" by Mark Rothko and "pity this monster, manunkind" by e. e. cummings.

Edward Estlin Cummings, popularly known as e. e. cummings, is an American poet who is known for his unconventional poetic styles in his literary works. e. e. cummings' poetry is mainly described as unconventional, because he deviates from the traditional technical details in poems. These deviations from the traditional poem style and techniques include the use of small letters instead of capital letters (notice that his name is even abbreviated and written in small letters), non-conventional typographical styles, distorted syntax, unusual punctuation, and the use of new words. These unconventional poetic styles and techniques are illustrated in the poem entitled, "pity this monster, manunkind," where the theme of human disillusionment and suffering amidst the progress of society after WWII is clearly depicted.

Created in 1944, "pity this monster, manunkind" is an illustration of cummings' unconventional poetry, where he uses non-syntax forms in creating his poem. Organization of words in each line does not follow any stanza organization, where each stanza may contain a variation of 1-3 lines. Notice also that the title (pity the monster, manunkind,) is a continuation of the first line of the poem. It can be surmised that the title may also be the first line of the poem, but because cummings' poem does not follow conventional poetic styles, the organization of the lines is not clear in the poem. Furthermore, cummings also fuses two words together, another technique that is uniquely associated with the author: "... into a mountainrange;lenses extend / unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish / returns on its unself..." (lines 6-8). The words "mountainrange," "wherewhen," and "mountainrange;lenses" show that cummings does not follow spacing rules in his work; he use words and put them in his poem in any way he wishes. These unconventional styles in cummings' poem illustrate the ideology of individualism and expressionism, which is a movement that expresses subjective feelings and emotions rather than depicting reality and nature objectively.

The content cummings' "pity this monster, maunkind" also depict the poet's ideologies (belief in individualism and expressionism). In the poem, cummings discusses the effects of progress on humankind, which became prosperous right after WWII. He expresses, through his poem, his dismay to humankind, who gave birth to progress: "pity this busy monster, manunkind, / not. Progress is a comfortable disease: / your victim (death and life safely beyond)..." (lines 1-3). These lines from the poem calls humankind as "manunkind," and not as mankind, illustrating the inhuman qualities of people as they try to control life, to break against the natural state of life. Progress is the product of mankind, termed as a "comfortable disease" because it slowly kills mankind as they exploit Nature (which includes humans). At the end of the poem, cummings illustrate his disillusionment in a world reigned by "doctors" who try to control the world through technologies and innovations: "A world of made / is not a world of born -- pity poor flesh... fine specimen of hypermagical / ultraomnipotence. We doctors know / a hopeless case if -- listen:there's a hell / of a good universe next door;let's go" (lines 9-10 & 12-15).

Similar to e. e. cummings' poetical work, Mark Rothko, a Russian-born American artist of the 20th century, has also depicted disillusionment in human society through his painting created in 1944, entitled, "Gethsemane." In this work, Rothko subsists to abstract expressionism, symbolism, color-field painting, and the subconscious to illustrate the theme of human creation and destruction in this popular artwork. These styles were adapted in Rothko's painting because these are the prevailing disciplines that occurred after WWII. Individual, spontaneous assertion of the Self is the main principle of abstract expressionism, symbolism, and psychoanalytic theory (in psychology). In "Gethsemane," Rothko also uses unconventional painting styles (similar to cummings' poetry). Technical details of the painting involve the use of color-field painting technique, where fields of intense colors where used to express emotion. It is also evident that Rothko's main subject in the painting is an unrecognizable form, but largely resembles a woman's reproductive system upon closer. Since Rothko's painting is dictated by abstract expressionism principles, it is undetermined whether the form/subject is what it seems to be to the observers.