Read the following poem and answer the following questions:
a. What ethical dilemma does the poem present?
b. Does the poem resolve this dilemma?
c. In a full reflective paragraph, how would you resolve the ethical dilemma that Pastan presents in her poem? Post in the discussion board and remember to respond thoughtfully to at least two other classmates.
Ethics
In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
If there were a fire in a museum,
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn’t many
years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we’d opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly. Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burdens of responsibility.
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself. The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn,
darker even than winter — the browns of earth,
though earth’s most radiant elements burn
through the canvas. I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond the saving of children.
Need a little help? Read and think about this:
In her poem Ethics, Pastan addresses the complex issue of morality and argues that responses to questions of morality aren’t always necessary, as far too often the answers come from a lack of experience and full understanding.
At first, there is a reference to a class taken “so many years ago,” where the question was first posed. She addresses the common feelings of youth, using phrases such as “restless on hard chairs” as well as “caring little” to illustrate the almost indifference to morals felt by the youth. It is not quite that they don’t care, but rather simply repeat what seems morally right to them without much actual thought. The passive diction used really illustrates this, specifically the phrase “always half-heartedly” and the word choice of “opt’d” rather than a much more active verb such as “chose” or decided.” While they ultimately mean the same thing, the connotations of the words Pastan chose illustrate the main idea of youth in the first few lines. We see elements that the speaker tries to understand, in that “sometimes the woman borrowed [her] grandmother’s face” as well as when she “replied why not let the woman decide herself?” There is an effort to understand, yet it is clear in the few closing lines of the poem that these efforts are trivial and unnecessary, specifically through Pastan’s description of “some drafty, half-imagined museum.” Her choice of diction illustrates an effort to understand, yet it’s ultimately unsuccessful because the speaker is simply too young. There is a shift into more intense and descriptive language rather than in the first lines of the poem, as Pastan employs the use of imagery in describing the painting’s colors as “darker than autumn, darker than even winter.” The transition from the classroom “every fall” to the museum “this fall” along with “a real Rembrandt, old woman, or nearly so, myself” sets up the transition of morality over the ages. Pastan’s changes in style as well as the change from an imaginary situation to a real one serve to illustrate and emphasize this transition from being young and lacking an understanding to growing old and gaining that understanding. There is also a shift in syntax into a much more poetic style of writing rather than her beginning syntax resembling prose. Pastan writes ” that woman and painting and season” to illustrate how complex questions of morality truly are, and how they “are almost one and all beyond saving by children.” In that last line, she addresses the morality of youth, choosing not to answer the overall question posed but rather to analyze the much more complex transitions of morality over time.
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