the single letter i
My dad always said, or perhaps joked - the line with Serbs is thin - that the capital “I” in English is a testament to the vanity of the British. He’s not wrong in that English is probably one of the only languages which capitalizes exclusively this pronoun, although realistically I’d assume that there’s a niche linguistic explanation. Nonetheless, it’d be boring to merely assume this. You have to find some symbolism in everything, or maybe that’s just a side effect of reading Invisible Man. Admittedly, I’ve poked fun at people who try to extrapolate meaning from things like punctuation and capitalization. But the poem that Sarah presented, “I Have a Dream” by Pat Parker, made me remember my father’s remark. I realized that the capitalization was not an accident.
While my father always referred to the “vanity of the British”, what was meant under the surface was a history of colonialism and the exploitation of others for the sake of profit; the capitalists of capitalists. For him, and many others, Britain symbolized a place where the individual came first, and where some individuals came before other. For Parker, this lowercase “i” may be a way of showing how she is marginalized in the society that came from that empire. She has been made to feel small, less than fully human, and by minimizing the pronoun she represents exactly that feeling in the poem.
However, she does also use a capital “I”, but only when talking about herself as part of a collective group. One way you could read this is that she finds strength and solidarity in the collective with other leaders who have had dreams. Or does she rejects the implied self-promotion of using a capital “I”? Maybe she wants to tell us that a capitalized pronoun should be reserved for someone/something bigger than the individual. Perhaps you could reconcile these two perspectives, but it’s a question of whether she wishes she could feel like a capital “I” or if she wants everyone to come to level of seeing themselves as a lowercase “i”. Either way, it still boils down to the sense of entitlement by the privileged members of society, which in her poem is symbolized by the capital “I” for an individual.
While my father always referred to the “vanity of the British”, what was meant under the surface was a history of colonialism and the exploitation of others for the sake of profit; the capitalists of capitalists. For him, and many others, Britain symbolized a place where the individual came first, and where some individuals came before other. For Parker, this lowercase “i” may be a way of showing how she is marginalized in the society that came from that empire. She has been made to feel small, less than fully human, and by minimizing the pronoun she represents exactly that feeling in the poem.
However, she does also use a capital “I”, but only when talking about herself as part of a collective group. One way you could read this is that she finds strength and solidarity in the collective with other leaders who have had dreams. Or does she rejects the implied self-promotion of using a capital “I”? Maybe she wants to tell us that a capitalized pronoun should be reserved for someone/something bigger than the individual. Perhaps you could reconcile these two perspectives, but it’s a question of whether she wishes she could feel like a capital “I” or if she wants everyone to come to level of seeing themselves as a lowercase “i”. Either way, it still boils down to the sense of entitlement by the privileged members of society, which in her poem is symbolized by the capital “I” for an individual.
This is so interesting Zona! I'm the same way in that I find analyzing punctuation and and capitalization pretty pretentious, but I do think the lower case I in the poem is significant, if only because of the consistency with which she uses it. You also make a really good point about the individual taking priority in the capitalist, imperialist society we live in so I'm glad you brought that up. I also really like your idea about the lower case representing a feeling of marginalization, whereas the uppercase represents a bigger picture, bigger than the individual concept.
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ReplyDeleteI love the idea of "the vanity of the British" and that definitely made me laugh. Unlike you, I love looking at the punctuation and grammar in poems and I definitely agree with everything you said in this post. It seems likely that Parker uses the lowercase to represent her marginalization and she really shows it well through the repetition of it. I like your point that she might find "strength and solidarity in the collective with other leaders who have had dreams." That was really an interesting comment.
ReplyDeleteThis was really insightful. Its interesting to think that she may have used the capital I when she felt like others saw her an an individual who fitted into one of those big dreams of Malcolm or Martin. But with her small dream, she doesn't fit in anywhere. She is just an i.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about scrutinizing things to such an extent as to look at grammar and such, but I feel that when it comes to poetry, and to see such a distinctive grammar "mistake" happen only once, it seems to be no doubt on purpose. Then you have to question what exactly that purpose is, and that's where things become open ended. I do agree with your statement about the uppercase I being used for things bigger than the individual, but i also read it a certain way. Because lowercase letters give off less of a sense of noise compared to uppercase ones, it seemed to me like the narrator was trying to really get personal with her poem by lowering her metaphorical voice.
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