Four levels of ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’ by Alden Nowlan

Now here is the Four Levels of interacting with text for “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” by Alden Nowlan. For more notes of BBA Second Semester English II, CLICK HERE!

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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

-Alden Nowlan

1. Literal Comprehension

The speaker in the poem is an amateur poet who is trying to compose a poem about his love towards his wife. He hasn’t written down the poem on the paper yet. It is being processed in his mind. At the same time, his wife enters into the room creating some kind of unfavorable environment for the speaker to hold his mental composition as he loses his attention. Consequently, he couldn’t finish the poem. The composition is lost. He then silently curses his wife.

2. Interpretation

The poem seems to be trying to tell us about the speaker’s passion for composing poems. A briefly mentioned act of his wife hints that she is either angry or being playful at the moment. The inability of the speaker to hold his mental composition just for a while shows his mental deficiency, or short term memory. It causes loss for him, but he can’t   scold her on her face. He only curses her silently which implies his henpecked and submissive behavior. Finally, the poem endeavors to establish a link between peace and creativity.

3. Critical Thinking

Consciously or unconsciously, the poet has created a poem different from the other lengthy poems with vague subject matter. At the same time, the subject matter of this poem is too thin that it only focuses on love of fame, peace and creation and scolding. The speaker curses his wife silently. Why doesn’t he scold her openly? Is he dumb@ss? Or is he afraid of that b!tch? It is better for him to go kill himself than to live a submissive life. Besides, his wife shouldn’t be blamed for his loss of poem. In fact, it is his lack of creativity and memory weakness responsible for the loss. The speaker is trying to compose the poem about his love for his wife, but he ends up cursing her which is quite contradictory. This shows that he loves his creation more than his wife. How can such man be a good husband?

4. Assimilation

I absorbed the fact from this poem that our human mind is limited and tends to have short term memory, but this should not hamper our creations. To overcome this, we should jot down the creative ideas as soon as they crop up in our mind. I realized the importance of peaceful aura foe creativity. Anyone can be a poet, and anything can be a subject matter of the poem. What we need is a concentration. From now on, I’ll be carrying a pen and a piece of paper wherever I go and write down my creations when they evolve. This will help me as I write songs for my band too. However, I never had the sort of experience as the one mentioned in the poem.

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Bonus Section

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