sp09250leschaefer

**"Sex without Love" by Sharon Olds (1984)**
Elena Schaefer

How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice, fingers hooked inside each other's bodies, faces red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth whose mothers are going to give them away. How do they come to the come to the come to the God come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them, light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin? These are the true religious, the purists, the pros, the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God. They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure, they are like great runners: they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio- vascular health--just factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against it's own best time.

Way 1: First Impressions
After reading this several times I still came away a little confused with the purpose of this piece. I realize the basic question the narrator is asking is why someone would have sex with someone they do not love. They compare making love with "dancers" moving over one another (2), and then later on comparing sexual partners as "great runners"(Olds 15). I'm not sure yet if the second comparison is about people in love and people not in love. The last six lines confuse me because the narrator starts listing off factors associated with running; like the road surface, the cold, the wind, their shoes, and their heart health. Then after all those factors they state they are all "like the partner in bed" (Olds 18-19). Meaning they are interchangeable and perhaps meaningless? The last three lines kind of re-emphasize this point by stating "the truth" (Olds 22) is we are one alone with ourselves against ourselves (Olds 23- 24). If I am following the line of thought correctly it still doesn't make sense to me because it feels contradictory with the beginning of the poem. The narrator seems to be feeling sorry for those who have no love to have sex with, those who are alone and have no one to really share the experience with, then ending with the thought that we are all pretty much alone regardless of having that partner. Or maybe the narrator is just seeing from the non-lovers point of view. I don't know. 

Way 2: Engaging with the Text
The sounds in the poem reflect a critical perspective. The narrator is asking how one can have sex without love (Olds 1, 2), then by following it with a comparison to the beauty of dancers (Olds 2, 3) it shows they believe sex with love is something to aspire to, that one is missing out without love. The piece made me feel sadness, regret, and longing. An example of alliteration is the repetition of the words, "come to the" (Olds 8) signifies some importance. When reading this part out loud I am reminding of a building climax. The word God (Olds 9) interrupts the third and fourth repetition and resembles the actual climatic point of this build up followed by one more repetition ending with "still waters"(Olds 10). This also follows my point of a climax with “still waters” representing the calmness and serenity after a climax. I noticed no real rhyming pattern in the piece but the rhythm especially if someone reads it to me just sounds sad. I have no real evidence why except that’s how it makes me feel. This sadness could relate to the text if they narrator feels sadness because of a jilted lover, or perhaps she is the result of love without sex and her mother gave her away (Olds 7-8).

Way 3: A Point about Form and Its Relationship to Content
This poem is written in free verse and has no regular meter. By regular meter I mean there is not a formal number of recurring groups of stressed and unstressed syllables. This is common for free verse as stated in our textbook by Brown and Yarbrough, “Free verse is not necessarily poetry without rhythm, though it does not sustain a regular meter” (93). Free verse can represent an author’s freedom with the subject they are writing about. Sex by nature is a private and conservative subject and the narrator speaks very openly with her feeling about sex, especially in relation to love. This freedom with the subject of sex is illuminated by the freedom in the structure.

Coming back to this point, in Olds' biography I found a source from the Gale Literary Databases of Contemporary Authors, and an Elizabeth Gaffney has this to say about her, "Her poems are sometimes jarring, unexpected, bold, in regard to her writing style." Perhaps this boldness is Olds' freedom and is shown here in the poem's free verse.

Way 3: Another Point about Form and Its Relationship to Content
The structure of this piece has a variety of line lengths which seems at first to be random. Looking closer I realized that the length of the lines when looked at as one piece, seem to represent a building climax. The lines slowly build up, then down, repeating until reaching the longest line of the poem (18), then dwindling down to one of the shortest lines (24). Since the poem talks about sex, the line length seems to connect with the meaning of the poem. A deeper way of looking at it is a climax of understanding. The poem starts with a question; the narrator is trying to understand why one would have sex without love, then moves on to images of lovers, followed but what is seems to be a critical analysis of those we have sex without love. In the last three lines the narrator seems to come to an answer of their own.

In addition to the line lengths, I think it is important to include that the longest line of the poem, which stands out, ends in the word "alone" (Olds 18). I'm sure this has some consequence to the poem.



Way 4: Unpacking an Instance of Figurative Language
The line, "gliding over each other like ice-skaters" (Olds 3) contains a simile with lovers being compared to ice skaters. To skate is defined as to glide or slide smoothly along. Ice is seen as cold, fragile, and breakable. It's interesting why the narrator uses ice skaters instead of roller skaters. What is it about ice that is particularly important in this poem? There is also the saying "skating on thin ice" which refers to putting one in a risky or delicate situation. A connotative definition for skate is to act in an irresponsible way by just skating through life and not accepting any responsibility. At first glance this line may provide some beautiful imagery for two people having sex but looking closer it seems their beautiful dance is not as in sync as the image would like us to believe.

Way 4: Unpacking Another Instance of Figurative Language
Following the line of thought from the first instance of figurative language I look to the next line "fingers hooked / inside each other's bodies" (Olds 4.5). This is still describing sex between two people who do not love each other and the image these words convey are one of passion and intensity. Looking closer at the word hooked there are several denotative meanings such as to take strong hold of or to become devoted or obsessed with. The author could have used the words grasping or intertwined instead, but using "hooked" shows a possesive nature and while passionate, also brings to mind desperation. The couple clings to each other in fear of being alone? 

Way 4: Unpacking Another Instance of Figurative Language
The part, "Red as steak" (Olds 6) is a simile comparing partner's faces with the color of steak. Steak is a cut of red meat that before being cooked is bloody and red. This is a easy image to bring to mind, people having sex would have faces that would be flushed, sweaty, and warm. A bloody piece of meat seems very primal and animalistic. Perhaps in using this type of language the narrator is trying to tell the reader that the act of having sex without love is just like two animals in heat. There is no beauty, it just fulfills a basic need.

Way 5: Analyzing the Setting
This is a little trickier since our textbook by Brown and Yarbrough says, "the lyric poem is comparatively brief and generally nonnarrative, giving the impression of being the subjective utterance of a single speaker." (83) I believe the setting is the narrator's thoughts and emotions. Their feelings and thoughts are important to "where" the story takes place.

Now I believe it is not so much a physical place but a certain time in one's life this poem represents, perhaps a certain time in history? 

Way 6: Identifying and Analyzing Point of View
I know it's not first person or second person, so it must be third person, however I'm torn between objective (detached) or omniscient (all-knowing). Can you be all-knowing of what others think and feel, but still be a detached onlooker?

It is third person due to the use of the word "they". After reading this a couple times it seems to me that it starts off as third-person objective, with the narrator completely detached from the piece, it talks about how people without love can possible make love without love. It goes thru the motions of what might happen physically in this scenario, but without any real depth. You can actually see the difference in how the narrator addresses the issue. It starts with questions like, "How do they do it..." (Olds 1), "How do they come..." (Olds 8) and then changes to statements like, "These are...", "They do not...", "They are like...", and "They know..." (Olds 13, 16, &18). The second half starts to get pretty personal and almost (not quite) becomes first-person because the narrator seem suddenly involved in the action. All the statements seem to be first hand experience and the poem takes a much more personal tone. I'm not sure if poems usually take a more personal point of view half way thru, but it seems as if the narrator can no longer take an un-attached view of this subject and then has to share a more personal and non-objected point of view.



Way 7: Analyzing Complexity, Ambiguity, & Difficulty
After reading this poem so many times so many parts have fallen into place and has made sense to me, yet the second half seems to constantly elude me. There are a few meanings I could just guess at what the narrator was referring to but I'm still not sure if it fits the author's underlying theme. I'm not even sure what the theme of the piece even is! The second half of the poem is so filled with complexity and ambiguity it's difficult to interpret how the author actually feels about the subject they are speaking about. For example, "wet as the / children at birth whose mothers are going to / give them away." (Olds 6-8) Babies who have just been born may be wet because of the fluids they are covered in but for some reason I think it's more than that since the narrator chooses to include only babies whose mothers are going to give them away. That's a pretty specific category. Perhaps the wetness is the babies tears, which is common for babies, but going a little deeper perhaps it is the tears those babies cry later on; when they are old enough to realize their mothers gave them away. Since this poem is sexually based, maybe the narrator used this simile to connect unwanted babies with couples who have sex without love. Maybe the narrator is a product of a loveless union and has grown up feeling resentful; too many maybes, too many ambiguities.  Another ambiguity is, "love the priest instead of the God." (Olds 15, 16) The priest in relation to God is the one who shares or re-enforces God's beliefs or ideas. He is the messenger, delivering God's words. So if someone would actually love the priest in place of God, they would be mistaking where the message came from. Thinking that the priest is the source of the pleasure that comes from religion and not God would be their mistake.. In connection with the poem, the narrator is comparing those who have sex without love with the "true religious, / the purists..." (Olds 13, 14) who do not mistake the priest for God. Kind of like how people can mistake pleasure (lust) for love. These people without love do not make this mistake; they know they love the pleasure and not the lover. "They do not / mistake the lover for their own pleasure," (Olds 16, 17)  The last ambiguity I'll address is the hardest one and I think unlocking its meaning can bring understanding to the entire piece and its underlying theme. "Just factors, like the partner / in the bed, and not the truth, which is the / single body alone in the universe / against its own best time" (Olds 21-24); is this the narrator's truth or the one's whom they scorn (the ones who have sex without love)? I don't think it's the narrator's truth since at this part of the poem a mocking tone has been taken. Perhaps this truth is the reason for the narrator's unhappiness?

Way 8: Considering Canonicity
I believe Sharon Olds' poem above deserves to be a part of the literary canon, because it comments on some universal human emotions and encourages the reader to take a less passive role, by questioning why love and sex are viewed the way they are. She could of written a more traditional poem about love and/or sex for the purpose only to entertain. Commonly poems about love are written to share feelings about how one might love another, but Olds instead asks "why" one might love another, "why" one would have sex with another? This for me is the first reason this poem deserves to be part of the canon. I remember reading this poem for the first time and wondering how I was going to get very far on this project if I couldn't make any sense of the poem. With patience, hard work, and the lesson's our instructor provided us, I was rewarded with a new and enjoyable understanding of my poem. Our textbook explains what sets apart literary writing from nonliterary writing, "One primary difference is that because writers of literary fiction and verse aren't aiming simply to entertain their readers...their stories and poems are almost always more complex than nonliterary works. The literary writer wants to challenge readers and to force them to engage their intellect" (Brown and Yarbrough 6). This poem also "draws on wide variety of literary devices such as imagery, metaphor[s]... to convey more complex ideas" (Brown and Yarbrough 8). Olds' word craft and mastery of observation gives her writing an aesthetic appeal that one might appreciate even if her poems are considered bold and daring, "fingers hooked / inside each other's bodies, faces / red as steak, wine, wet as the / children at birth whose mothers are going to / give them away" (Olds 4-8).

Way 9: Biographical Context
While reading some biographical information on Sharon Olds I learned that a lot of people seem to think her work is based on her own personal experiences, like I did earlier on. Knowing what she had gone through with a distant and unavailable father in her life I can see why she would question certain relationships between people. I think more than ever I should be very careful in assuming the author is the narrator in this piece. Many quotes from the biographies strongly point towards Olds ability to be overly perceptive of hers and other's emotions. From the Gale Literary Databases of Contemporary Authors Richard Tillinghast say, "Olds is a keen and accurate observer of people." From the same database Elizabeth Gaffney say, "Out of private revelations she makes poems of universal truth of sex, death, fear, love. Her poems are sometimes jarring, unexpected, bold, but always loving and deeply rewarding." With not a lot of poems focusing on sex, Olds breaks some boundaries by examining this subject on a deeper scale. Looking at her poem as an observation instead of a revelation makes me look at lot closer at human nature as a whole. Perhaps the poem commenting on how sex without love looks on the outside could open up new understandings on what the poem is addressing. An interview in Salon.com Sharon Olds is quoted as saying this about her poems, "And if you look at all the love poetry in our tradition, there isn't much that helps us know why that one. I'm just interested in human stuff like hate, love, sexual love and sex. I don't see why not. It just seems to me if writers can assemble, in language, something that bears any relation to experience -- especially important experience, experience we care about, moving and powerful experience -- then it is worth trying."

Way 10: Historical and Cultural Contexts
After this week's lesson my understanding of my poem has grown in leaps and bounds. I was afraid with how hard it was at first, to find information pertaining to the historical and cultural context of my poem. Once I broke down what was essential going on during the time period the poem was written, I was able to find a lot more sources. During the 1980's, a more conservative time period was following the last few decades of a sexual revolution. From Time magazine at Time.com I gathered a few statements that supported this shift in ideals, "Though many values are still being sorted out, most Americans seem stubbornly committed to family, marriage and the traditional idea that sex is tied to affection or justified by it. "Cool sex", cut off from the emotions and the rest of life, seems empty, unacceptable or immoral. 'The whole culture is on a swing back to more traditional expectations,' says Dr. David Scharff, a psychoanalyst and author of The Sexual Relationship. 'There is a return to the understanding that the main function of sex is the bodily expression of intimacy' " (The Revolution pg.10). This ties back with the poem's critiquing of sex without meaning. If the narrator was feeling the same way, as many other people at the time were feeling, then it would explain the mocking tone the narrator takes with this subject. A generation no longer finding a loveless physical union desirable. From the same Time.com article, "One Chicago graduate student, 37, now in her second marriage, echoes that uneasy change. Says she: 'Many of us are unable to break the habit of self-absorption, unable even to live with someone else because it interferes with our own space.' " (The Revolution pg. 8). Beyond the seemingly mocking tone of the poem, there seems to be a longing for mutual understanding of the wondrous joy that is love. And what that love brings to sex. Ending the poem with how someone, who uses sex as a means to an end, might view sex, leads to the assumption of what should be important and how sex should be viewed, "They do not / mistake the lover for their own pleasure, / they are like great runners: they know they are alone / with the road surface, the cold, the wind, / the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio- / vascular health--just factors, like the partner / in bed" (Olds 16-22). From the Journal of American College Health, Thomas K Hearn Jr, says, "Immanuel Kant regarded morality's central law to require treating persons as ends in themselves rather than using others as means. Sexuality regards the love and respect for another person's essential selfhood, which is at the basis of that sort of understanding...What is needed is a sense of what is holy--what is transcendent--something to be regarded with reverence and respect, something that is not casual or trivial, something that is never free and never safe" (Hearn par. 37-41). This poem could be a plea or commentary against such a casual and trivial sexual experience.

Way 11: Theoretical Application
Looking at the above poem, a New Critic would ask about the imagery and symbols integrated throughout the piece. They might wonder why those images and symbols are present and how they reflect on the poem as a whole. Our textbook states, "New Criticism emphasizes close reading, which means more or less what it seems to mean: readers carefully and analytically considering the text--and only the text--from a variety of angles,...and try to learn what is accomplished by the text...words should be considered for both their denotative meaning--their dictionary definition--and their connotative meaning, or implied meaning, including whatever associations the word might conjure up" (Brown and Yarbrough 212). Looking at the different denotative and connotative meanings I addressed earlier in Way 4, there seems to be a focus on the individual's needs and/or desires. These examples of figurative language conjure up images of a raw and animalistic sense of sex. When you think of the act of "making love" I assume the words tender, wondrous, caressing, and unity would come to most people's minds. But the narrator chooses instead the images "fingers hooked / inside each other's bodies, faces / red as steak, wine, wet as the / children at birth whose mothers are going to / give them away" (Olds 4-8). These images just portray the lust of one's flesh, certainty not love. One might ask, why compare these people to unwanted children? An unwanted child at birth is truly in a sense completely alone in the world. So is the image of the "great runners" (Olds 18), since this is traditional a solo activity. Why then is there this overall sense of loneness in the tone of the poem?

Way 12: Another Theoretical Application
A deconstructionist critic would look at the above poem differently then the New Critic. Instead of using the text to conjure up a unified meaning throughout the entire text, they would attempt to show the text's differences and how those differences bring new meanings to light that the author did necessarily intend. Our textbook has this to say on the subject, "One of the primary goals of the deconstructionist critic is to show, as a given text is further and further unraveled, that instead of there being a proper reading for the text, there //is not// a single proper reading of the text but rather that the meaning of the text is ultimately 'undecidable' or indeterminable" (Brown and Yarbrough 225). The poem's conflict stems from the poems ambiguity about what sex is really about. Is sex a beautiful dance between two people that consumes them and drives them together to a satisfaction that is both physical and emotional? Or is sex about an individual's goal; "a single body alone in the universe / against it's own best time" (Olds 23-24)? Is there really just one objective answer to this question or are there many interpretations that are each equally valid? Perhaps through the narrators tone we could assume which answer is preferred, but is that the only answer? In light of the time period of this poem, when one's sexual nature was in question, can we truly say they is a "one size fits all" response to how one should view sex? This conflict supports the deconstructionist point of view and opens up the text to questions possible beyond the author's intentions.

Way 13: Unifying Interpretation
When I began this analysis I felt a little overwhelmed with the assignment before me. My Way 1 and 2 seems to bring up more questions than answers. But I feel I also picked out two very important pieces of the puzzle needed to uncover more depth. First I addressed the last four lines and why I felt a contradiction with the rest of the poem. It seems to me understanding those last lines with bring the whole poem to a greater lever. Second with engaging the text I noticed how the use of alliteration with the words "come to the" (Olds 8) seemed to represent a building climax. Further down in Way 3 another building climax is brought to light. When looking closer at the length of the lines of the poem it seemed to be another representation of a building climax. Since the poem refers to sex in its title and its content I think these climaxes are important how we look at this poem. I believe these two climaxes represent a climax of pleasure for the lovers in the poem and perhaps a climax of understanding for the readers. For the line length climax, the longest line, which is near the end of the poem, is line 18 ending with the word alone. This connects with what I believe to be the greater understanding uncovered in the last four lines. I will address the greater understanding in my last paragraph once I've established a few more connections. The structure of the poem is considered free verse and Olds' boldness of a private subject such as sex, is shown here with a freedom that is unexpected and provoking. Skipping to canonicity, this provoking is a good thing. Her piece would have no more value than for just entertainment if Olds' poem did not provoke or challenge reader's thoughts. Olds' poem does not tell you what to think instead it challenges how you view your sexual nature. Using examples of figurative language like "fingers hooked / inside each other's bodies" (Olds 4, 5) and "faces / red as steak" (Olds 5, 6) brings to mind an animalistic desire for physical connection. There is no emotional or mental connection with these comparisons. This physical intensity to me portrayed desperation, a sexual connection needed in one's isolated world. One in love is neither alone nor desperate.

To answer my question I asked in Way 6 about point of view, I believe now you can be (somewhat) all-knowing of what others think and feel //and// be a detached onlooker, if you were overly perceptive and observant of other's emotions. You could then as a narrator, describe and interpret what you believe other's behavior says about them as a human being, while still not being involved in the direct action. Moving on, the ambiguity described in Way 7 is important to the poem and I believe should remain ambiguous. The conflict I had earlier with the poem was not being able to figure out who the narrator was describing. Were people who have sex without love wrong and missing out on something or were they the clever ones, knowing what we do not? I think there is no correct answer and I think the narrator's ambiguity emphasized that lack of answer. This poem thrives on that unanswered question; to love or not to love? This understanding came about mostly through reading Olds' biographies. I had made the earlier mistake of trying to connect the author's thoughts with the narrator's. Knowing that the majority of Olds' works are a reflection of her observations and not her experiences, made me re-think what this poem was observing. Not an individual's one idea but multiple individual's ideas, all valid and worthy of taking in account. These multiple valid interpretations tie into to the deconstructionist critical approach. Sex and the meanings behind why people have sex, are open to many subjective points of view. There is not one unified universal answer. Having these multiple interpretations enrich the text in a whole new, mind-opening kind of way. Looking at the poem in a historical context helps understand why this subject was valid at the time of publication. In the early 80's a new way of thinking about sex was underway. Sex was no longer a safe way of expression. Many were tired of meaningless one night stands. The freedom original found in these antics was being replaced by loneliness and sexual transmitted diseases. Olds' poem most likely hit a lot of targets and challenged an old way of thinking about sex. Lastly looking at denotative and connotative meanings and how a New Critic might tie them together. The one part of the poem that to me seemed out of place and was thought about several times in my above ways was, "wet as the / children at birth whose mothers are going to / give them away" (Olds 6-8). Why was the narrator comparing lovers to unwanted babies? The one idea that stuck with me and connected with many of my other ways was that an unwanted baby was in a sense the most alone individual in the universe. Compare with the great runner mentioned later in the poem and the idea went off and running.  So with all these interpretations and ideas I now want to address the last four lines of the poem and how they illuminate and expand on the rest of the poem. Olds' poem begin with a question and ends with comparing the sexual being with "great runners" (Olds 18) and what I believe to be insight on isolation, "just factors, like the partner / in the bed, and not the truth, which is the / single body alone in the universe / against it's own best time" (Olds 21-24). It seems what the narrator is attempting to do is in this poem is comment on what one might get out of sex. This obviously differs between individuals and if one knows no other way are they really missing out on anything? A runner, like someone who partakes in casual sex, may only focus on themselves and no one else. Everything else is just a factor to help or hinder their goal. Their goal is their own physical satisfaction. If you compete against yourself, than you are the only winner and loser. You are also completely alone. This connects completely with my previous paragraphs where the idea of being alone is touched on several times. To love or not to love? To connect or not to connect? Is the chance of being hurt worth the risk of being close, or do these people who have sex without love got it all figured out? This is all part of the poem's comment on a human being's connection or lack of connection with others. Not a true judgment, just an enjoyable and insightful observation of the human phyche. No more, no less.

Works Cited and Consulted
Olds, Sharon. "Sex without Love." __The Dead and the Living__. New York. Knopf. 12 Feb.1984.

Brown, James S., and Scott D. Yarbrough. __A Practical Introduction to Literary Study__. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. 2005

Gale, Thomson. "Sharon Olds." __Contemporary Authors.__ 2005. __Gale Literary Databases__. 24 April 2009. .

Garner, Dwight. "The Salon Interview: Sharon Olds." Salon.com. 18 April 1996. 24 April 2009. .

Leo, John. "The Revolution Is Over." TIME. 9 April 1984. 30 April 2009. .

Hearn Jr, Thomas K. "In the 1960s there was no free love--in the 1990's there is no safe sex." __Journal of American College Health.__ Vol.42. Issue 6 (1994): p298-303. __Academic Search Elite.__ Ebscohost. UW-Waukesha. Waukesha, WI. 30 April 2009. .