A Review of "The Living Hand" Without Any Sexual Remarks

In John Keat’s poem “This Living Hand” the dominant image is that of a hand alive and well, and not just a hand, but presumably an important hand, as if that of someone the reader might be involved with, which is called to mind by calling the hand a “living” hand, “warm and capable/ of earnest grasping”. This word choice, together, is meant to elicit a positive emotion towards the hand, because warm hands are generally thought to be nice, capable hands, too, and because “earnest grasping” (though offset by a line, suggesting “capable” may have added importance) suggests a close personal bond, ranging the gambit from small child to lover. Let’s hope those extremes don’t get mixed.

 

But this image is quickly and purposely put into a different context: that of an icy hand of a corpse of the same relation. Not only does the author bring up the image of a corpse, but seems to try and make the reader imagine the tactile sensation of a cold hand of a close relation. Moreover, the fact that the hand remains a hand detached from any identifiable source, the hand becomes all the more disturbing when the author suggests that the hand will “haunt thy days” and “chill thy dreaming nights” (again calling up the cold imagery) because a disembodied hand carries with it the fear of the unknown.


And because the change occurs within a few heartbeats (I say heartbeats, because the author himself uses the image of a stopped heart, for obvious reasons), the effect is as if the author were to say “here, feel my hands, they’re warm,” and having after having touched the hands, saying “but I’m sorry, they’re actually quite cold.” And to top it all off, the author well knows this. His final two lines are

 

“And thou be conscience-calm'd—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.”

The purpose of these lines, after having suggested the hand’s deathly coldness, is to assuage the reader that the hand, in fact, is not cold and dead at all, and quite the same hand that was alive, well, and warm a few heartbeats ago. Even the title, “The Living Hand” seems to be a reassurance that the hand is still alive— the title is not “The Deathly Hand”. 

‘Don’t worry, dear. All is well. Shhh. Go to sleep.’

 

For added fun (very, very optional, as in: the assignment has ended), discover just how creepy disembodied hands can be (besides the obvious Macbeth reference), in this short video of a mini-boss named "Dead Hand": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwoujhcJeiU
Also suggested from TLoZ Ocarina of Time is the Wallmaster (who, sadly, had no ready video).

A Story in a Title

Ambiguity.

That, perhaps, is one of the best and worst parts of language. Ambiguity is the best in that it allows the author of whatever text to hide behind a series of meanings for whatever reason and manner that such concealment suits the author's purposes. Ambiguity is the worst part of language for the exact same reason. For one who simply seeks a grain of truth, the frustration alone is annoying, let alone the irony that a medium whose purpose is to convey information is being used to obscure information.

Besides the valid reasons of an author to hide behind a text, the layering of meanings in a text does add more than the sum of each layer, so that a whole text is truly more than the sum of its parts.

Moreover, the state of the human condition would suggest that, at least historically, the only messages worth hearing are ones that run more counter to other messages.

Frankly, mine is an oft repeated grievance when it comes to language’s ambiguity. And that grievance has little ground, too. I would be both astonished and delighted to learn if there were, in fact, a better alternative. But I still dislike that ambiguity, if only because it just bugs me. Fortunately, I’m justified because of the frequency of conflict over ambiguities.

And so without further ado, I name this blog "Changing Expectations," a title with at least two meanings. Do I mean to change the expectations of those around me? How? From what to what? Do I intend to change my own expectations? How, and from what to what? Who knows.