Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Understanding the Inner Sounds


Right before the first chapter of Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje, there are three sonographs with a slight explanation underneath. I think that these sonographs represent the inner emotions and thoughts of human beings. These emotions have "so many frequencies or pitches [...] vocalized simultaneously," just like the dolphins, that the human sense system cannot pick up on all of them. By "frequencies", and "pitches", for humans it could mean all of the different things we can feel, think, sense, and respond to, in a minute.
For example, Buddy seemed to be okay for a while, he had a normal job, cutting hair, a family that he lived with, he seemed to portray understanding. But as the book goes, you can see all of the different currents he was in at the same time, while still seeing the general image that everyone else was getting.
I think that the sonographs show that although people may seem silent, they are really sending out millions and millions of messages, and feelings. They may seem one way, but on the inside they have so much going on, that they themselves have a hard time keeping up and understanding it. And I think that when you lose complete track of what is going on in the inside, and lose all understanding whatsoever, it is at this point that you lose it completely, and end up going insane.
Therefore Buddy probably lost track of what was going on inside of him, his feelings and emotions, and way of thinking became too complex and too jumbled for him to understand, therefore he went insane.

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