Searching for Forbidden Knowledge in Digging for China
In Richard Wilbur's poem, "Digging for China", he writes, " 'Far enough down is China,' somebody said. 'Dig deep enough and you might see the sky as clear as at the bottom of a well.'" (Lines 1-3) Wilbur was suggesting to his readers that if one looks at the world in a different way, they could find a totally different place. We can see this concept when we explore Wilbur's poem as a whole piece. He is talking about finding a paradise in one's backyard. He emphasizes a lot about prayer, and looking harder and digging deeper for this other world. He warns his readers that they must not loose the rest of their life by trying to change one thing.
When we, the readers, break apart Wilbur's poem, we find the continuous acknowledgement of religion. The person in the poem works day and night trying to reach China. He/she was on hands and knees trying to dig this hole. "It was a sort of praying, I suspect." (Lines 12-13) This person is realizing that they have to look other places for their "paradise" they are trying to find, so they look to God. When they do this, they are covered in brightness. Wilbur uses the word "palls" to express this idea. The true definition is a black velvet cover that drapes over a coffin. If the person wouldn't have looked to God in prayer, then their "paradise" would be covered in this darkness, rather than the brightness they found. Another word that Wilbur used in reference to prayer was "paten". A paten is a plate that the Eucharist is carried on. The Eucharist is the body of Christ; his life. In the poem, the life that the person was looking for was growing before them, but they were still looking into the hole.
The person then begins to realize that they are looking in the wrong place. We see this when Wilbur writes, "my eyes where tired of looking into darkness, my sunbaked head of hanging down a hole." (Lines 18-19) They realize that this idea of their "paradise" is taking away from their life and that they must take their head out of the darkness that it has caused. Wilbur brings up the sun because it shows that the person is coming back to consciousness. They are thinking about what is really important in life. With this, the person stands and begins to see the things that they imagined in the beginning of the poem, "the whole sky china blue." (Line 24) What they were looking for was already surrounding them. All they had to do was to look at the world in a different perspective, and open their eyes to different opportunities. The man was not really seeing China, but what he could not see in his world before, because he was not viewing the world in the same manner. Don't stay blind of life's possibilities.
As a reader of Wilbur's poem I was able to relate this to the book Woman Warrior. In this book, Kingston was forced to look at the world in one way. Her parents tried to keep Kingston's head in the black hole by only telling Chinese stories and blocking American society from her life. Kingston doesn't keep herself in this black hole, but fight to become an American. At the end of the book, she begins to view her world in a different perspective and this brings her to understand her life. When she saw her life in other terms, it was confusion. This is related to the poem when Wilbur writes, "There's people, trees, and houses, and all that, but much, much different. Nothing looks the same." (Lines 7-8) The thing is, it is the same, and it is just how you look at it.
The American people were viewed in two different ways, and seen as two different things. To Kingston's parents they were ghosts, to Kingston they were people filled with American knowledge. By relating the Americans to ghost, Kingston's parents were able to block out any cultural experiences that may influence them. This then brought forth forbidden knowledge. If it were not told in a story, then the younger generations would not learn it. In the poem, the black hole is the forbidden knowledge. By looking into the hole, the person misses the knowledge that could be learned outside. Until they realize that the ghosts are human beings, or that they see light, then they will always have this forbidden knowledge.
The question is, should we seek this light, this forbidden knowledge? Wilbur writes, "Until I got my balance back again all that I saw was China, China, China." (Lines 25-26) As a reader of Wilbur's poem someone asked me, if discovering China in New Jersey was a good thing, than was gaining this balance not good? I would have to say that in gaining his balance and this knowledge, it has made the person stronger. The person in the poem learns how to use these strengths to look at his life in a different manner. If a person is able to do this, than they can increase their goals and attributions to their life. They can become an all-around better person. Wilbur wants us to remember that reaching for the forbidden knowledge is a positive thing in life, only if you are looking in the right places. He says that a person must not get caught up in looking for one aspect of forbidden knowledge and then leave the rest of their life behind. Partner sites: Labrador Retriever, Study Spanish in Costa Rica, and Free Essays and Term Papers