The Chained Mind

First and Last Name

ENGL 1020-018

Professor Name

10 October 2011

The Chained Mind

Wendell Berry uses many themes in his poems, with most of the themes based on life from his bias perspective in late 1900s. He writes poems that reference to his time period and the future to come. In his poem "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front," Berry presents a convincing argument of how he believes one should live his or her life to be content and achieve life fulfillment. Some historicist's would argue this argument based on his Presentist or future based writings, views, and variety of themes to be perceived from one poem. In a scholars opinion his arguments is what distinguishes his poetry, using language for the reader to work through, and making one think critically. Basically Berry's poem depicts a great argument to have your own mind, he uses many examples causing one to think critically and consider his or her own interpretation to understand his underlying themes.

Therefore Berry presents interesting philosophy that one must challenge themselves, "Love the Lord," look forward to the modern condition, live life making mistakes but resurrecting yourself after. Berry uses so many scenarios and confusing themes, due to his examples and structure of the poem, one must perceive his writings in various ways. In my opinion his philosophies and scenarios are unrealistic in today's time (due to political puppets and past politics influencing today's economy) but his philosophy may have been possible in the 1970s. In Berry's time period no one wanted change or to be involved with the radical movements of those days. Berry never supports his challenge to the reader of that time when he writes "Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands." Berry's arguments and challenges continue to confuse the people of today when he expresses the modern condition in lines 23- 33, he is basically saying if we lead that life we will live without the window over our head (mentioned in line 5). The metaphorical window he speaks of is probably the life of a farmer in his day who cannot speak up for himself due to the government's constant monitoring of farmers and their land. Maybe if Berry took a more direct approach there would not be so many themes and more clarity on his main subject matter, life.

Readers of today look at the past when reading Berry's poems and compare them to today. Life during his time is predictable because it was controlled the authorities or government; he mentions this when he writes of the window in your head I mentioned earlier. His views are like Jay Leno's "If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates," which is a simple philosophy with multiple meanings or themes. The author could have taken a different approach to develop a better argument by sticking to one type of example instead of jumping from challenging authority to loving the Lord and making mistakes. Berry causes one's mind to agree with what he's saying based on that time period but disagree based on today (21st century) and his radical statements.

However "The Manifesto: The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front"