The central theme of this poem is "it isn't your actions that people remember, it is your reputation." The poem is about a person saying that they were told a story about two legs in a desert that were accompanied by a head. These were of a dead king whose head was depicted as mean, strict, tyrannous, etc. Though the head's plaque spoke of his great powers and great deeds, all that remained of him that is focused on is his head. This shows that the author is warning the reader that all people will remember about us is how they see us in their minds, which usually comes from our reputations. The person that put that head in the desert only remembered the king's mean nature. Though the king may have done great things, we don't know that. The message is for people with authority, or people in general, to treat everyone so that they will be remembered in a positive light. This may be hard, considering we cannot control what people think of us, but we must try.
I'm not sure if I agree with this message or not. I like the idea of being nice to people, but it seems to put a lot of emphasis on what other people think about you, which I don't see as important. What do y'all (most likely Mr. Costello) think?
No comments:
Post a Comment