Delight in Disorder

I like this poem too. The speaker compares the two sides of his lover. It seems from the poem that the messy, chaotic side of her is by far his favorite. He compares her to a messy, abstract work of art. He basically tells her that her appearance doesn't matter to him at all. He prefers a mess to a put-together, ironed-out girl. Honestly, the poem seems a little cliche, but I like it. At first, I thought the poem was referring to the speaker's attitude toward chaos in general, but after the small group discussion, I see the specific reference to his lover. I really do like the small group discussions. They clear up a lot for me, and I think I'm starting to understand more on my own by thinking about the poems from another person's perspective.

An Idea Within an Idea! *voice of Guiness man* Genius!

In the middle of my last post, I realized that Hemingway used a cliche early in the novel! The cliche is more of a concept than a phrase because Hemingway doesn't say it directly; he hints at it. When Robert Cohn meets/sees Brett, he is immediately interested in her. On page 30, Jake narrates: "Dancing, I looked over Brett's shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still watching her." And this after he asked her twice to dance. Creeper! But through Jake's eyes, we see the cliche: love at first sight. I think it still counts as a cliche even though it's a concept rather than a phrase, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the concept of "love at first sight" has been used over and over again throughout literary works and even in real life for years. It's so corny now that people laugh at it, but Hemingway cleverly disguised it so that readers would take the novel seriously.