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Explication of Dudley Randall's "The Melting Pot"
An explication is an interpretation of a written work. They differ from person to person
in that we all don't interpret things alike. It seems to me that we learned in high
school about literature and such was a waste of memorizing and testing because we were
taught only "right" answers about written works. There is no right way to interpret an
author's work. What they do is leave doors open to make you think about their work. Even
a songwriter does the same thing. Songs can be even more difficult to interpret than a
poem or story because the first that thing usually attracts us to a song is the music and
that is what we concentrate on mostly. Then a question comes about in my mind that why
there has to be any answers or meaning to a work. Why can't I just enjoy a poem for the
way it sounds when it is read aloud? Why can't I just enjoy a song for the way the words
are put together and enjoy the music? It can be fun sometimes to analyze a work and pick
out things like wonderful metaphors. I can see where that comes in to literature. What I
hate is when I read a really great story and I enjoy it and then I go to class and get
hounded for answers and I give them and they're not right because I felt different about
a story than someone else. Well, anyway, I'm going to do the best explication I can of
Dudley Randall's "The Melting Pot" on page 693.
Bartorillo 2
"The Melting Pot" seems to be about anyone and everyone being accepted as Americans
except Blacks. The second set of four lines is kind of funny because it gives you several
names that sound un-American and when they come to be an American they lose that and use
a more American version of their name. Even when people came through Ellis Island they
usually took a different name or made theirs shorter to be more American. The next four
lines read about a Black man who is unaccepted as an American even though he's been there
waiting for it. The poem seems to say that no matter where you're from if you're white
you can become a white American no matter what country you're from. It seems to say that
we're divided into Whites and Blacks regardless of nationalities. The end of the poem is
where Blacks decide that they're going to be who they are and be proud of it and they
don't care about being accepted or not.
So that was my own interpretation of a poem. Someone else might have another idea about
it but that is perfectly okay because our minds work in all different ways.