days

Days
Philip Larkin

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are happy to be in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin's "Days" discusses the existence of both life and death, treating life with innocence and naivety while treating death with cynicism and morbidity. In addition, the poem makes comments concerning the matters of religion and science associated with death.

The poem begins with a question: "What are days for?" This question resembles a question asked by a child, and so the response resembles a question given to a child; However, if the poem were to be read through an existentialist lens, the narrator could be questioning the reason for life. Without delving too deep into the search for the meaning of life, the response answers that days are where we live. The description of days as being a "where" rather than a "when" provides the idea that days are not a time but a place. This implies a much more permanent state rather than "when," since time passes by while places remain existent.

With the statement that the days "come," the days are portrayed as existing to serve us rather than us to serve the days. Their purpose is to wake the individuals "time and time over," as if their duty and the days are never-ending. This implies the idea that living is endless as the days continue on and on. As the days are said to "wake us" again and again, it's as if the days are permanent. This is ironic as life is known for its brevity due to death, and the suggestion that the days come "time and time over" illustrate the response as an attempt to retain innocence through rejecting the idea of death.

It's suggested that the days are "happy to be in," though it doesn't describe the happiness obtained through living in the days. In addition, this implies that the days are always happy and never upsetting, another indication that the narrator is attempting to maintain innocence and naivety. Along with this lack of description for happiness, the description provided for the days is itself scarce and not very detailed, leaving everything as vague and innocent. However, by the second verse, the tone shifts from pleasant to negative.

The verse ends with another question: "Where can we live but days?" Although it appears to be a rhetorical question, the narrator provides a cynical response to that answer, commenting that it's not only days in which one can live. The poet claims that the other place to live would bring the "priest and doctor," implying a connection to religion and health to the other living place. Religion and health can be both be tied to death; while religion provides a belief in the afterlife, health indicates the decay of the body after death. 

With their "long coats," the priest and doctor resemble ghosts, casting an almost sinister feeling by the last verse. Their "running over the fields" could be of haste towards a dying individual, perhaps hoping to provide religion to him to ease his mind of death or to provide treatment to him to prolong his life. 

Beli of Wao

In Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the most powerful characters appear to be the women of the work. While Oscar struggles to find a relationship with a girl and Yunior fails to maintain a relationship with a girl, the women are the ones who hold some form of power over their male counterparts. Beli possesses a power over those around her, though her power is often lost through the act of sex. However, she manages to maintain power over her family despite appearing the opposite.

Beli holds power over her family through her stubborn attitude and overconfidence. When she matures, she realizes the control she acquires "By the undeniable concreteness of her desirability which was, in its own way, Power" (94). As a teenager, she uses her attractive features to catch the attention of Jack Pujols, who treats her with "little respect" (99). However, this is unknown to Beli and she still treats their relationship as a position of power in her favor. She believes Jack to be her "husband" (101) and insists that her actions with him are not wrong in any way. 

While their relationship crumbles, Beli finds another partner in the form of the Gangster, a man who appears to reciprocate to her the love she feels for him. Although he "normally would have tired right quick of such an intensely adoring plaything" (126), he makes promises to Beli about buying her houses with twenty rooms in Miami and Havana. Although she no longer possesses "even a modicum of respectability at home" (128), Beli continues to strut around with her head above the clouds, finding herself superior to those around her. When she realizes she's pregnant, Beli refers to it as the "magic she'd been waiting for" (136); she holds a power over the Gangster that guarantees his staying with her. Her power is stripped, however, when it's revealed that the Gangster is married to Trujillo's sister, and Beli is severely beaten up in a canefield. Her child is lost, and therefore her power over the Gangster is also lost. 

Beli's desire to maintain her power over the Gangster is shown in her attempt to keep faith in him. The week before she leaves for New York, she's with him in a love hotel, and although she tries to "hold on to him" (163) in a chance to impregnate herself once more, the attempt fails. Her wish to once again acquire him lasts until her last moment in Santo Domingo; she continues to believe that "the Gangster was going to appear and save her" (164). 

As a mother, Beli is able to exercise power over her family by her commanding ways. Although La Inca treats her kindly, Beli treats her children in an authoritarian manner, her duty being to "keep [her children] crushed under her heel" (55). Her first drop from power occurs when she discovers cancer in her breasts, which could symbolize the moments she loses control due to her sexual encounters. With her cancer, she physically appears weak and thin, and to Lola, she appears "bald as a baby" (70), emphasizing her appearance as innocent. However, when Lola runs from her mother, she's manipulated as her mother is simply pretending to cry, faking it to get her daughter to come back. In addition, Lola comments that she "didn't have to ovaries" (70) to run away from her mother, referring to her ovaries as power or courage. Her mother says "te tengo" (70), which could mean her repossession of her daughter or her repossession of her power.