I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. -D.H. Lawrence
I’ve thought a lot about your bird. I have been insecure in the knowledge that I haven’t exactly met suffering with grace and dignity. Self-pity and I, we’re old friends. I’ve been embarrassed about that, ashamed of it. Why haven’t I been like your noble bird?
You gave me the answer, a single word inside your short poem: wild.
Freedom and self-pity don’t generally appear in the same places. Self-pity belongs to the dependent, the oppressed, the tamed. We are like circus elephants, moping around untethered, unaware that we are free because for so long we were not. This is the product of being rendered manageable, of having the very wildness stripped from us.
I am a domesticated animal, D.H. Lawrence. And I will tell you that nothing hurts quite so much – and leaves such weeping wounds – as the act of being broken. A tamed thing can’t help but feel sorry for itself. -h.g.
But your bird inspires me and awakens the feral in me, reminding me of the wild thing I once was and can be again. The ropes that hold me down are merely the ghosts of ropes that dissolved long ago. My illusions are all that oppress me now.
And so I’d like to thank you, D.H. Lawrence, for illustrating so beautifully the capacity for gratitude that liberty affords. In doing so you have, perhaps inadvertently, highlighted how diminished that capacity can become under the heels of oppression and tyranny. I truly love your short tribute to the frozen bird, to wild things. Without it, it might have taken me much longer to remember that I too am at heart a wild thing.
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How do we know what the bird feels or not feels? Does it make sense at all to ascribe feelings to others based on observation alone? Do I take this post too seriously?
I cannot speak to your last question. With regard to your first two, however, you have a point. And you’re in good company:
John Ruskin, an influential art critic in the 19th century, coined the term “pathetic fallacy” to describe the attribution of human emotions to inanimate objects, animals, and nature. Much of D.H. Lawrence’s poetry demonstrates the pathetic fallacy. This tendency of his to, as you put it, “… ascribe feelings to others based on observation alone” really irritated and bothered me for a long time. This poem in particular, Self-Pity, really stuck in my craw. I asked myself why it bothered me so much and had to think about the answers for a long time.
Ultimately, that’s precisely why I love the poem. It’s beautiful but, more importantly, it displays a gross misunderstanding of human emotion. It is this very misunderstanding that forced me to think about my own self-pity and allowed me to make a personal connection between oppression and self-pity, and freedom and gratitude.
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Wow. I am deeply moved. What a wonderful way you have of expressing yourself through your writing. Thank you so much for allowing us to use this heartfelt post for The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse.
I can so relate to what you are talking about here at your blog. In my own experience, I might add that comfort and compassion were not part of the equation in my childhood. Sometimes I think I feel sorry for myself and for that little girl who was me because SOMEBODY needed to! Again, thanks for sharing and I hope you submit to the carnival again.
Details are always at my blog as I am the blogger who founded it and maintain it. I try to run an edition every month.
Thank you so much! I really enjoyed writing this post. I’m so glad you enjoyed reading it.
With reference to a lack of comfort and compassion, you make a good point. When there is no one offering those things, it’s difficult to learn what they look like. Self-pity can sometimes be the closest thing to comfort and compassion a child has.
Thank you for the encouragement to submit again. I had never heard of blog carnivals before this one! I’m looking forward to writing a submission again soon.
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