Fundamentalism

I chose this poem because I think that it relates to a lot of things that people my age are experiencing, along with relating to what she has experienced from her culture.  I think that the format of the first half of the poem, where she asks a number of questions is a rhetorical way to self-examine one's self.  I think that they are questions that she has asked herself throughout the course of her life.  I think that she is trying to express the point that it is more important to be true to one's self, rather than worrying about satisfying others.  I think that she proves this in the stanza that states, "If you liked the kind on his golden throne more than the villagers carrying the baskets of lemons?".  This means that she believes that it is more important to work hard for yourself than to fall into a lifestyle of social hierarchy.  This idea is also carried over into the next stanza, where she states, "If you wanted to be sure his guards would admit you to the party?".  This once again displays her thoughts about her meaning of life, and that it is vital to keep your morals, and know where you came from.  That the only one who needs to be satisfied is the Gods that you believe in, and know that they will never be truly satisfied, so one's mission in life needs to be to do all they can to achieve the closest thing to it.  The last two stanzas, for me, are difficult to interpret.  She seems to imply that she knows someone whose father is in a war, and she does not want them to follow his father's footsteps. I think that the correlation between the final stanza and the boy sharpen his broken pencil with a knife shows that he has mad a mistake in his life, and thinks that it is not repairable.  The pencil tip is repairable however, and I think that is what Nye is trying to personify when she says in the last stanza, "If he would believe his life is like that."