Good fences make good neighbors – Robert Frost

Symbolist movement in France began with Baudlaire’s Fleurs du Mal (1857) and was strengthened by such major poets as Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, and Valerie. The techniques of the French Symbolists, who exploited private symbols in a poetry of rich suggestiveness rather than explicit statement, had an immense influence throughout Europe. It spilled over to England and America after the 1890s and its influence is apparent in the poetry of Arthur Symons, Ernest Dowson, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas, Hart Crane, E. E. Cummings, and Wallace Stevens. English and European literature since World War I has been a notable era of symbolism in literature. Many major writers of the period used symbols which are drawn partially from religious and esoteric traditions and partially developed by them. “A symbol,” to Abrams, “in the broadest sense of the term, is anything which signifies something else … however, symbol is applied to a word or set of words that signifies an object or event which itself signifies else; that is, the words refer to something which suggests a range of reference beyond itself” (Abrams 168). Symbols are of two kinds: conventional or public and personal or private. While conventional symbols pose less difficulty in their comprehension, the private ones become more difficult to interpret; for, they are less known and less exploited by other poets. While writing about I.A. Richards, in ‘Symbolism’, Wimsatt & Brook explicate “that reality itself … is a symbolic construction” (584); and Emerson maintained: “Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words” (Qtd. Wimsatt & Brooks 585) and that “We are symbols and inhabit symbols” (587).

Indian English poetry, which was born under the influence of the English Romanticism, also has some poets who employ such words or sets of words that signify an object or event which itself signifies something else. Chambial also has a predilection for such symbols through which he seeks to convey the intrinsic turmoil not only of the society, age, and the milieu, but also of his own mind. Very little attempt has ever been made to interpret IEP for its symbols. I endeavor, in this article, to study Chambial’s poetry for its symbols and symbolic impact.

D C Chambial, an established Indian English poet, has eight collections of poetry in English: Broken Images (1983), The Cargoes of the Bleeding Hearts (1984), Perceptions (1986), Gyrating Hawks & Sinking Roads (1996), Before the Petals Unfold (2002), This Promising Age & Other Poems (2004); all these six books appeared in one collection, Collected Poems: 1979-2004, in 2004. Two more collections followed it: Mellow Tones (2010), and Words (2011).  All these eight collections are scheduled to appear in yet another one single collection in 2011.

The poetry of DC Chambial is rooted in symbolism. Almost all the poems of his eight collections are rich in symbols and build up a characteristic element in his poetry. Symbolism makes poetry more beautiful and meaningful. Without symbols, all poetry is prosaic. Chambial has used symbols to effectively target the loopholes, weakness, and maladies of society. He is socially symbolic when he ventures to present the existing picture of life around him. All men and women are white as pearls and innocent as lambs when born.  The world teaches them to be hypocrites behind their appearances. The lust for power makes them blood-thirsty and finally, they are turned into wolves and hyenas which symbolize wildlife of lust, cruelty and malady in mind. He writes in his poem ‘On This Day’:

Men and women born white as pearls
innocents as lambs
the lust for power
(political and religious)
makes them blood-thirsty
turn into wolves and hyenas – (CP 13) 

He uses “pearl” and “lamb” as symbols of purity and innocence. But this world and existential requirements to be all powerful and at the top makes him cruel like “wolves and hyenas”. Man cannot be animal, but his acts make him worse than the ferocious animals. So wild animals, like wolves and hyena, symbolize man’s pitilessness to other human beings and creatures. It is also a satire on the present polity.

‘The Gyrating Hawk’ is weirdly dramatic and metaphysical in that it exposes the horrid hovering of evils and dangers of corruption over the vast expanse of peace-loving and innocent humanity. To disturb the harmony of “Songs from Earth / and sky”

Hawk gyrates and gyrates
over the vast, deep and calm
sea of dawn. … – (CP 20)

The psychological comparison of hawk to evil or corruption and vast deep and calm sea to humanity is apt and precise even at the metaphysical level. Further, the picture of “Waterfalls” (through lettered graphics) by sensuous hillside / where Kama and Rati sleep together, is drawn sensuously, tellingly and meaningfully, reminiscent of Keats’s sensuousness and pictorial quality.

Here the poet uses “sea” as a symbol to portray the morning hours as vast because the whole world experiences it in its “deep”, that is, gravity without any turmoil of the day and “calm” as such. Humanity unaware of the maneuvers of the powerful is at peace, but the “hawk(s)” of society, another symbol for the powerful, are watching and planning in their mind to prey upon the weak and the innocent.   About this poem, Khetarpal writes:

The harrowing spiritual and moral sterility, the threat to human peace, virtues and values in the current distressing scenario has been symbolized by horrifying images like “hawk gyrating”, “squeaking”, “snake in claws”, “Cats, leopards and wolves” stretching their legs and walking “into the pool of blood”. The poem, in fact, is a terse and bleak documentary account of the current moribund civilization.

Trance is a state in which we are thinking so much about something that we do not notice what is happening around us. It is a symbol of hypnotized world through which Chambial presents the face book of the world:

Words
gyrate like falcons
in the skeletal sky,
flow in streams of passions
past emotional hills
and sentimental valleys,
clouds gather overhead
to give myriad shapes
to colliding thoughts. – (CP 28)

In this poem “sky” and “cloud” have been used as symbols to convey the vastness of mind and the confusion resulting from the plethora of thoughts in the space of mind.

He has often used “stone” as a symbol for the voiceless and the powerless humanity in ‘The Stones’ and ‘Ocean of Despair’.  In the first poem, which has two lines but single sentence flows like a river or very much like a stone as it rolls down a hill. The poem reads:

Cold and stolid stones
senseless and apartheid
wriggle with
spades and sickles
atop murderous hills,
erode in sands,
tarry on ensor edge,
vacillate like a pendulum
pole to pole
in a vain hope
of dole. – (CP 27)

The poet describes stones “cold and stolid”; stolid they are no doubt; a stone cannot be soft.  These are also cold; for, it seems they have lost the power to sensitivity. In extreme chill limbs reach a state of numbness due to frozenness and lose all power of sensation. Hence, “stones” are “cold and stolid”. It becomes quite apparent when one moves down to third and fourth lines: “wriggle with / spades and sickles”; the word “wriggle” tells that these are not non-living but living human beings. The words, “spade and sickles”, makes it quite clear that the noun “stone” has been used as a symbol for the workers who have to work at dangerous places: “atop murderous hills”, “in sands” – hot deserts, and their life is ever subject to perpetual hazard : “tarry on ensor edge”. How much do they get even after working at such fatal places? They are always poor; find it hard to make both the ends meet and no shelter to cover their head and scarce clothes to cover their bodies. The last four lines of the poem make it universal by expanding the region of their action which is not particular but general, not limited but universal. The simile of vacillating pendulum talks about their fate. They move in search of work and bread all around the world “in a vain hope”. They never get enough to fill their bellies, shelter for their heads, enough clothes to cover their bare bodies, and educate their children from “pole to pole”, that is , from one end of the globe to the other end. They get no “dole”, neither financial nor moral support from the rich of society. 

In the second poem, ‘Ocean of Despair’, he presents, once again, a very queer picture of

Dead stones
wail like Niobe
by cold water – (CP 31)

with the help of a simile of Niobe, an example of the bereaved mother, from Greek mythology. As wife of King Amphion of Thebes, she bore six sons and six daughters and blundered to boast of her fertility to Titaness Leto, who had only two children, Apollo and Artemis. As punishment for her vanity, Apollo killed Niobe’s all sons and Artemis all her daughters. Niobe was so overwhelmed with grief that she always wept inconsolably in memory of her children; the gods turned her into a rock on Mount Sipylus in Italy, which weeps endlessly as the snow above it melts.

In these lines, “stone” has been used as a symbol to suggest the weak and the poor of society who have no say even to ask for bread to fill their hungry bellies. Stones cannot ask because they are non-living things. The fate of the poor is also similar. Why the poet has used the adjective “dead” to qualify the “stones”, is, perhaps, to emphasize the misery of the poor. Their life is almost like the dead. “Dead” and “stones” put together double the helplessness and misery of the poor in our society and convey something not better than death. It the word “wail” that hints at their being alive. In their life, they have only to weep endlessly; for, there is none to abate their suffering that is further emphasized by the simile of “Niobe” from Greek myth.

He uses “ball”, “earth” and “heaven” as symbols to describe the sun, woman and man in the poem, ‘Submission’. The sun steadily moves down at dusk to set in the west. See the picture:

A cold ball of fire
by and by
sinks into
the sea of mist,
earth and heaven
cover themselves
in compromising pose,
submit to
the divine urge. - (CP 28)

It appears to the poet as if woman and man symbolized by “earth and heaven” respectively in the night unite, come in “compromising pose”, to fulfill an “urge” that is “divine” – the urge to create. He very beautifully describes the process of man and woman coming together to conceive a child without using any obscene word.

The phrases: “a blade of grass” and “a rootless tree”, have been used as symbols to describe a sorrowful and distressed woman in the poem, ‘A Blade of Grass’:

greenery leered to see her tremble
like a blade of grass
and fall down
a rootless tree – (CP 29)

though in the similes. The woman is weak and powerless – “a blade of grass”- and her sorrow is so great that she is unable to bear it and falls down completely broken – “a rootless tree” – in this cruel world.

The poet pays tribute to a hero of Indian Freedom struggle Jayaprakash Narayan in a poem titled “A Tribute to a Hero” (CP 34). Bird, light, welkin, mountain, flame are the symbols used to describe the towering personality of the late Indian leader. This tribute pertains, particularly to the emergency period and his rallying the scattered polity opposing the Indira Gandhi regime and its atrocities:

The bird flew very high
on its last voyage
to perch on the citadel of fame
and song a note from the peaks
the valleys reverberated.

The “bird”, as a symbol, represents Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly known as JP, under whose call opposition united to overthrow Indira Gandhi’s regime during the post-Emergency period of 1977. And

Light flashed
in the welkin
of the troubled land
to put the digressed pilgrims
on the right track.

“Light” symbolizes hope. The “troubled land” symbolizes the emergency-torn state of India as a nation. And “digressed pilgrims” refers to the helpless people, who felt rudderless and had lost all hope of sanity and rule of law returning to the land before JP appeared on the scene. He guided the nation by rallying the disparate polity trying in vain to resist Indira regime’s oppressions and atrocities.

Mountain of courage stood
till the last breath was out.
Invincible to all attacks,
harbored to a forest
of harmony rooted in disharmony. – (CP 34)

“Mountain” is another symbol for JP who remained dauntless till his death despite various tortures inflicted on him in captivity during emergency of 1975. Here “attack” symbolizes the tortures meted out to him. Again “forest” symbolizes the multitudes of people belonging to different cultures, religions and lands as there are different kinds of trees, plants and bushes in the same forest. In the fifth stanza, the poet has used still another symbol, “pillar”, for JP, in the lines: “The pillar stood fast / supporting the mansion”. It seemed the whole India, at that time rested on him as does a mansion on its pillars in the present-day sky-searing constructions. And “mansion” also symbolizes India as a nation at that time.

The poem, ‘Manacles’ (36), uses “manacles” in “manacles / of your hands” as a symbol for the restrictions imposed by life on individuals in the form of responsibilities. The protagonist wants to be free like a bird but these responsibilities in the form of chains bind him and restrict his free movements. The poem, ‘Sciamachy’ (36), has words like “sun”, “gnomes”, “jackals”, “wolves”, “cats”, and “rats” all used as symbols. The “sun” stands for light, goodness and happiness is taken from nature and is universal in its significance. The second one, “gnomes”, is taken from the world of spirits while the other four have been taken from the world of animals and represent evils. Thus, in this poem, the forces of evil are overpowering the forces of light, knowledge, goodness, and happiness. With the help of these symbols the poet has created a somber and horrible atmosphere.

The poem, ‘Mosaic’, also presents the picture of a frightened person, especially a girl/woman, in these lines:

Soft and serene petals bloomed
in dales of heart, wither in awe; weep,
plunge into whirlpool of despair. – (CP 39)

in this stanza the word “petal” is symbolic of happiness, but the environment is rife with danger and fear grips the heart of the protagonist; so, this happiness gives in to the prevailing “awe”. In fear it weeps and finding no succor becomes absolutely dejected. In the phrase, “whirlpool of despair”, the word “whirlpool” is another symbol brought into service to convey the dizzying state of hopelessness.

The last sentence in the last line of the second stanza, “Pearls down marble cheeks” (CP 40) uses “Pearls” as another symbol. As one goes through this line one understands that these pearls run down the cheeks of the protagonist and figures out them to be tears. In this line and poem, the word “pearls” symbolizes tears. Tears have most often likened to pearls in poetry. However, these rise from a pensive and sorrowful heart and express the agony in the heart through tears that flow down the cheeks. Tears also connect the second stanza with the first where the persona is shown weeping.

The poem, ‘Dawn’, employs “divine singers” and “incense” as symbols. As the reader reads, the lines:

honey’d music
of divine singers,
prayers of innocent hands
burn frosty incense
in the censer of virgin pool – (CP 40)

He, at once, realizes that it is the description of dawn. At dawn the birds begin their carols in choruses before the human world is up from sleep. Here birds have been suggested by the phrase “divine singers” and in the early hours, before the sun has risen, in the hills there is fog because of low temperatures. This fog is symbolized by “incense”; as the smoke rises from incense in censer, so does the fog from any source of water. This source of water, “virgin pool”, gives rise to fog and suggests someone praying before nature with incense in hands. Here “incense” becomes a symbol for fog. The whole atmosphere of temple comes before the eyes: the singers are singing His praises, and nature in the form of fog is making the environment aromatic and pleasant. The whole nature appears God’s temple.

‘Shivalingam’, in the following lines has used three words: “Bhagirathi”, “Damroo” and “Tandava”. Apparently, these words refer to the holy Ganga that takes its birth from Gangotri in Uttarakhand and is also believed to have descended from the locks of Shiva. While “Damroo”, a small drum, like an hourglass, is also associated with Lord Shiva. The third one, “Tandava”, is Lord Shiva’s dance of destruction.

O, the Eternal Father!
Execute who dare defy
And vitiate the flow of Bhagirathi
Let none be deaf
to the sound of your Damroo
and fear the Tandava – (CP 48-49)

“Bhagirathi” is a symbol of life or life on this earth. And “damroo” becomes a symbol of sound that informs the inhabitants of this earth, who, with their unholy, amoral and corrupt actions, are busy in defiling the piety of the earth. If they fail to heed the sounds then destruction is imminent. So, they should listen to the sounds foreboding disaster and stop their murky deeds that vitiate the earth created for healthy and pious living. Thus, these three words, though directly associated with Lord Shiva, also have symbolic relevance.

In ‘Perishing Man’, Chambial pictures the sorrowful plight of life.

Headless bodies
march in
a mute procession
on the dark road
leading to a maze…

Terrible cries follow
in an uproar
without human shores
Numberless snakes.
leave holes in Siberia
to live in cities…. – (CP 81)

In this poem the symbols used are “Headless bodies” and “snakes”. It symbolizes that man lost sense of living. Man has become man’s enemy. Man has made life difficult for man. The rich are exploiting the poor everywhere. The word “Headless” that qualifies the noun “bodies” has also a pun: “without head” which is impossible, the second meaning is “senseless” it seems the more apposite meaning here. One wonders why these senseless human beings are marching in a silent procession. They do not find any other mode to express their protest. And “snakes” come to live in cities: snakes have often been associated with satanic vices. Satan appeared to Eve, in her dream, as a snake and enticed her to eat the “forbidden apple” that resulted in Man’s Eternal Sin. Therefore, snake symbolizes depraved human behavior. The men with such attributes preponderate in cities. Hence this symbol becomes justified.

Chambial sounds Robert Frost in the quote “‘Good fences make good neighbors’” from ‘Mending Wall’ (Frost 44). Similarly, people of different faiths can maintain good neighborly relations even without walls and fences. Walls and fences become symbols of barriers or impediments. They can listen to each other in perfect harmony. Mutual harmony and co-existence are emphasized here to justify the existence of life. The following lines, from ‘Without Walls and Fences’ (CP 163-64), make the idea clear:

People with caps,
sacred threads, crosses
sit together
in temples, mosques, churches
without walls and fences
listen God’s words in ecstasy. – (CP 164)

In this poem, the poet has used “cap” to suggest Muslims, “sacred thread” for Hindus, and “Cross” for Christians. One can see that when at prayer/namaz Muslims always wear their round caps, Hindus without Sacred threads are considered unholy and have to wear one while doing their pooja or any religious ceremony, and Christians always keep a Cross with them.

In nut-shell, the present discussion shows that Chambial has used “ball”, “bird”, “Bhagirathi”, “cap”, “cloud”, “Cross”, “Damroo”, “earth”, “gnome”, “hawk”, “headless bodies”, “heaven”, “hyena”, “jackal”, “manacles”, “mountain”, “pearl”, “pillar”, “rat”, “sacred thread”, “sea”, “sky, “snakes”, “stone”, “sun”, Tandava”, “wolf”, etc. as symbols to express his view point in the poems dealt in this article. The use of symbols makes it difficult for the reader, not familiar with this mode of art and also with some private symbols employed, to comprehend the underlying meaning as the poet is never direct in his articulations.

I reckon that DC Chambial is a skilled artist who has employed symbols so richly that almost all the eight collections carry a hidden beauty and sublimity of expression. He not only writes through abstraction but also through powerful symbols, metaphors and similes. One finds that Chambial largely unites these symbols into a poetic synthesis. He renders the experience of observation typically symbolic. His symbolism is an immediate urge to unfold the truth. He takes up contemporary issues, day to day incidences and ironic punches to effectively present symbolism. He evinces symbolism as a weapon to correct the wrong doings of world. Truly, Chambial has joined the symbolist poets like W. B. Yeats, Rimbaud, and Robert Frost. Symbolism in Chambial largely bears marks of time, sense and sensibility.

Works Cited

• Abrasms, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 3rd ed. Rpt. Delhi: Macmillan India Limited, 1981. Print.
• Chambial, D.C., Collected Poems (1979-2004) Poetcrit Publications, Maranda, H.P. (2004). Print. It has been abbreviated as CP in the text of the article.
• Frost, Robert. Selected Poems. Ed. Ian Hamilton. England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1973. Print.
• Khetarpal, Dalip K. “This Promising Age and Other Poems: A Critical Analysis.” Unpublished article.
• Britannica Ready Reference Encyclopedia. Vo. 7. New Delhi: Encyclopedia Britannica (India) Pvt. Ltd. 2005. Print.