The Traveling Onion

Friday’s class helped shatter my preconceived notions about literature, specifically poetry, and helped me develop a process in understanding it better. First I used to think everything the author meant had to be understood the first time it was read. That unfortunately just isn’t true. Also, I thought the text meant one thing, and that was the authors meaning. That was also disproved in Friday’s class, because The Traveling Onion can be taken literally, or figuratively. The process we used was similar to the scientific method for conducting experiments.

My initial reaction was based on the premise of not taking things for granted. C.S. Lewis writes “When you consider the immense number of meetings and fertile unions between ancestors which were necessary in order that you should be born, you perceive that it was once immensely improbable that such a person as you should come to exist: but once you were here, the report of your existence is not in the least bit incredible.” I can relate this back to the onion that traveled so far to make it to this stew today. It wasn’t until we did the second step, asking questions, did I start to understand the point. I was confused on the lines “commenting on the texture of meat or herbal aroma but never on the translucence of onion,” Andrew help me understand a different view on the importance of the small things in life. The onion is a very small, but crucial in adding flavor to the meat and stew. That was the third step in the experiment, getting another view point. I understood the poem better after these three steps. But the crucial step I missed before that step was to reread the poem. Rereading is so important. Like any form of literature whether it would be music, movies, or books. The second and third time is far more important than the first, because the first time is just read to get the main points and what it’s about. It isn’t until the second and third time that you start to pick up on small details like subtle glances. Then we reread the poem again, however it was aloud. Then we discussed it as a group. This was good to hear everybody’s differing views on the same texts.

Overall, I thought it was a very effective and helpful exercise, and I will implement this experiment for all the future texts that I read