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Applied Humanities

Themes in Literature Forché By Eric Steineger 2 Module Two: Introduction to the Humanities, continued / Page 2.2.1 Forché On this page: 0 of 4 attempted (0%) | 0 of 1 correct (0%) Objective: Analyze a poem by Carolyn Forché to identify its theme.

Our study of the next four works—“The Colonel,” “Meditation at Lagunitas,” “Professions for Women,” and “The Hare’s Self-Sacrifice”—will focus on themes in literature.

This prose poem recalls an encounter with a colonel during El Salvador’s civil war. Our narrator and a friend dine at the colonel’s house while the family maid serves them food and the colonel’s wife attends to their needs. The poem exudes Carolyn Forché’s “poetry of witness” ethos, as she has championed human rights and egalitarianism for decades. Forché edited a 1993 anthology titled Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness.

The Colonel

By Carolyn Forché

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say

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nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them- selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

May 1978

All text from “The Colonel” from The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché. Copyright © 1981 by Carolyn Forché. Originally appeared in Women’s International Resource Exchange. Reprinted by permission of Harper Collins Publishers.

Response Board During your first reading, what stood out to you? What was impactful (if anything)? What didn’t make sense (if anything)?

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Sensory details (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) factor prominently in any genre of creative writing. The eyes and the ears have priority in “The Colonel.”

Multiple-Choice Question

Which of the following statements accurately describes the senses that are most prominent in the poem?

The poem begins with not seeing and ends with not hearing. The poem begins with hearing and ends with seeing. The poem begins and ends with hearing, with seeing and hearing in the middle. The poem begins with seeing and ends with hearing.

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A popular saying goes like this: “Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.” However, Forché stresses the importance of the observer’s ear: “WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true” (emphasis added). This statement, placed at the beginning of the poem, serves to validate the story that follows. After dinner, however, questions remain.

Troubling to any citizen of the world is the casualness of this scene. On the surface, this could be any ordinary family (the son goes out, the daughter files her nails, there’s a show on TV). The reminiscent perspective of storytelling at the table sounds familiar— this happened, then that happened—until suddenly we’re confronted with barbarism.

Consider how the narrator responds when faced with this barbarism. How might her choice to share this encounter show the theme of resilience? Remember that we can think of theme as the “overallness” of the work, the central ideas that float to the surface.

Short-Answer Question

If resilience is a theme that applies to “The Colonel,” what does it refer to?

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We’ve been taught to examine the poem for what information is there. But consider what’s NOT there in “The Colonel.” What does this encounter suggest about the responsibility of a witness?

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