Introduction to the Poem:
The poem entitled “Case Study” is a confessional poem. It is psychological study of a man who lacks firmness of purpose and is governed by weak will power. This poem first appeared in Nissim Ezekiel’s fourth volume of poems which was published in 1965 under the title of The Unfinished Man. In the poem the poet draws a vivid picture of a man who could not really make up his mind about things, particularly about his career or his mission in life. It is a vivid portrait of a wavering, weak - willed and irresolute person.
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| Nissim’s Poem Case Study, Summary and Critical Appreciation |
Summary of the Poem:
The narrator describes an imperfect man who could never decide the ways of life. He had always been an embodiment of failures and shortcomings. Due to being a man of instable nature, he always remained in wantonness and could not choose the right way of his life. He also greatly lacked in firmness and will power. His life was full of imperfections. Because of having no certain goal of his life, he lived a burdensome life. He had never known exactly what to do in the course of his life. He never followed his teachers who (his teachers) had not failed in their assessment of their own deeds. If he had followed their ideals, noble deeds and virtues, he would have become a perfect and successful man. His teachers could be the greatest source of inspiration for him. He could not choose a career for himself. Whenever he had to choose one of the options, he felt in great confusion. He had always been incapable to decide from which way he had to settle the journey of his life. His future had ever been in a great wavering state.
The narrator tells us about the imperfect man. The imperfect obtained his primary education in a very ordinary school and for higher study he got admission in very cheap and worthless college. It was only formality at the name of education. In such school and college where he acquired his education, the teachers were unskilled. They were not professional and competitive teachers. The education which was imparted by these institutions had no importance and value. These institutions could not produce worthy young men. The students who, after acquiring education in these worthless institutions, looked for their employment and their career, wandered here and there, but could not seek better employment, nor were they able to build their career. But the imperfect man also committed a great mistake, which, later on, became the greatest blunder for his life. This mistake was that he, after completing his education, did not think to build his career, but instead of doing so, he was overwhelmed with the feelings of love of some girl . He was absolutely mad after love. Indeed it was a foolish act on his part. By falling in love he spoiled his expected hopes. Then he mustered up his patience, courage and will power and started making effort to build his career in some sphere, but his efforts proved to be futile. He found that his bookish knowledge was meaningless. He failed to overcome his goal. Finally, he resolved to try his hand at politics.
Having completed his education, he, instead of building his career, fell in love with some girl and later on he married with that girl. After his marriage, he greatly regretted because his marriage was the greatest blunder of his life. His marriage had become the greatest obstacle in the way of his glorious future. Due to being a married man, he had become a social man. He had to endure domestic responsibilities. After some years of his marriage, he became the father of children. But he could not fulfil the responsibility of a good father for his children. He showed intense love for his children. His extraordinary love changed some of their habits. Instead of going on the right way, they wandered. His children picked up some bad habits. Later on, he tried to control them by implementing hard discipline. He imposed upon them some of his individual expectations. By doing so, his children became the victim of nervousness. Their natural instincts were crushed under his hard discipline. They were deprived of the practical knowledge. His excessive discipline filled them with the feelings of terror and fear. They feared to go out to face the obstacles and circumstances of the external world. He was completely burdened under heavy weight of domestic life. This domestic game declined his career.
The imperfect man had an instable mind. He was incapable to decide what was wrong or right. Due to wantonness of mind, he worked at some place only for a short term . He tried his hand on various jobs. Because of having no sensibility and practicality, he kept on shifting one job after another. He never thought to settle at one place and become expert only in a sphere. But a time came when he was badly tired of changing the jobs and projects. In his later life, he put a check on such tendency and habit. It could never be found out why he changed his jobs and projects. It remained a mystery. Some people who were very close to him tried to discover the truth but no reality of changing the jobs could be found out. Some people were of the opinion that due to being an impractical man, he chose impossible projects, but when he found himself incapable to do them, he gave up them after doing for a short time. But about this tendency of the imperfect man it is said that it was not entirely true. Truth always remained unknown. Some people thought that he never abandoned his previous job unless he found the expected and desired job. The main reason behind the habit of changing the job was considered to be the suitability of the job. He could not get the job of his liking so he kept on changing.
When the imperfect man was badly tired of his habit of changing the jobs and schemes and could not get success in building his career, he went to the narrator to seek his advice. The narrator told him that he would never enjoy the life of stability unless he removed the fickleness of mind and developed firmness and strong will power. He further told him that for want of firmness and will power, he would keep on wandering and thus his life would always be purposeless. In this state he would ever pine for glorious future, but he would never fulfil his desire. He suggested him to apply his own intelligence to get success in his goal. He told the imperfect man that those who have tried to make use of both the alternatives have not come out as victorious. Many fickle minded people have reared the desire in their hearts to make their journey in two different directions at one time, but there are only few who have come out to be successful and others have failed. The people, whose minds remain in the state of fickleness, are not always called cheat or fraud.
Critical Appreciation of the Poem:
Introduction:
The poem entitled Case Study is a confessional poem with appeared in Ezekiel's fourth volume of poems published in 1965 under the title The Unfinished Man. In the poem, the poet draws a vivid portrait of a man who always remains in a wavering state of mind. His fickleness does not provide him any opportunity to flourish in future. He wants to settle in his life in a distinguished manner and also wishes to build his bright career but unfortunately his fickleness becomes the greatest obstacle in the way of his bright future. He greatly lacks of patience, firmness and strong will power. For want of his intellect, he feels unable to take any right and proper decision. In fact the poet finds out the consequences of the wavering state and fickleness.
Thought - Content:
After studying the case of the imperfect man or the unfinished man, the poet found that whatever the imperfect man had done was not quite right. He was unable to certain the mission of his life. The examples of teachers could not inspire him. He failed to choose a career for himself. The education and knowledge which he acquired in worthless school and college proved meaningless. Having acquired the education, the imperfect man, instead of building his career in some sphere, fell in love with some girl and spoiled his time in love affair. He tried to build some sort of career for himself but finding his education and bookish knowledge to be useless, he resolved issue his destiny in the sphere of politics. He married to that girl whom he loved and also got children. When his children were small, he showed excessive love for them. The result was that his children picked up some bad habits under his excessive love. Later o he tried to control them by applying hard discipline, but its consequences were bad. His children, instead of getting an improvement became the victim of nervousness and hesitating nature. Hard discipline, suppressed their inborn instincts. He also applied the same control and discipline for his wife and servants. Due to being a fickle minded person, he was in the habit of changing jobs. Some people were of the opinion that he was an unpractical man who conceived impossible projects which he, afterwards, renounced. In fact, he never stirred unless he found something which he loved. One day he went to the narrator to seek his advice. He advised him to change the purposeless and irresolute behaviour and to use the intelligence he had got.
A Confessional Poem with Psychological Study of a Man:
The poem is undoubtedly a confessional poem with psychological observation of an imperfect man or an unfinished man. It is a study of a man who greatly lacks in firmness of purpose and is by nature weak willed. The imperfect or unfinished man remains unsuccessful in building his bright career. It is a vivid picture of a wavering, weak - willed and irresolute person who is in real sense the imperfect or the unfinished man. The character of this man has been described in frank terms by a third person who may be the author himself and who is most probably, the author himself, though it has been suggested that even the man portrayed in this poem is the author himself in disguise . The poem is one of his several attempts at an exploration of his own mind. He portrays his own personality and his mind.
In the poem, Ezekiel takes stock of his own failures including the failure of his marriage, and his sense of having hardly achieved anything worthwhile, though he does find some sort of consolation in the thought that every man, who fails in life, is not regarded as a cheat or a fraud. Ezekiel tries to explore the labyrinths of his own mind as well as the minds of others in order to achieve a feeling of stability and comfort.
The Poet's Dilemma, Arising from His Split Personality:
In the poem, Ezekiel has written: “A man is damned in that domestic game.” (The domestic game here means, of course, the conjugal life of a man and a woman.) From this fallen sub - human level of individual and social set up, the poetic self of Ezekiel flees to achieve balance and harmony. He stresses the need of commitment, sincerity and integrity as essential conditions for the completeness of a poet; and without this completeness there can be no association of sensibilities with the result that a poet's imagination would remain fragmented. Without completeness, a poet would not be able to get out of the world of ego, and his responses and identifications would be mostly superficial and monotonous. This sort of thing would result in the distortion of the vision of a poet.
Style and Language:
Ezekiel is a skilful artist who uses apt and suggestive words for his purpose from a rich stock. Words are carefully chosen both with reference to the sense and their sound. He aims at avoiding superfluity and at achieving terseness, economy and condensation. His style has epigrammatic and proverbial force and many of his lines are easily remembered. For instance: “The pattern will remain, unless you break / it with sudden jerk.” He makes effective use of rhyme. The poem is written with remarkable rhythmically accuracy.
