OP here. Not to get all EngLit teacher, but pretty much any instinctual reaction to art is valid. Perhaps the author wants you to feel slightly confused - as thats a common function of art (see crosswords/puzzles, murder mysteries, stories that start in medias res, magic eyes, postmodern novels, cut up art, or really any art that isn’t entirely linear and explained, which can include naturalistic drama if an antagonists’ motivations aren’t revealed until later)
Perhaps they want you to consider what it means to be a criminal, to observe and interact with a criminal, what it means to serve one’s punishment and the aftermath, what it means to be an ex-criminal, how we imagine our responses to crime (it seems like there’s a bunch of reactions in the poem: rehabilitation, activities in society, removing someone from a cycle, violence, verbal abuse…)
It could also be a reflection on how we use humor to cope — the speaker in the poem knows he’s (friends? accompanying? the officer assigned to?) with a murderer and yet jokes about it - a pretty human thing and an interesting concept for a poem
It also speaks to me of dystopic fiction or experiments in rehabilitation / psychotherapy in the past/present, and the media’s and society’s reaction to such.
Plus, I find it quite amusing even without deeper thought.
No, I don’t think so. “Would you like a sandwich? … The murderer eats his sandwich” implies the narrator gives him a sandwich. Cheese and ham is a common sandwich.
OP here. Not to get all EngLit teacher, but pretty much any instinctual reaction to art is valid. Perhaps the author wants you to feel slightly confused - as thats a common function of art (see crosswords/puzzles, murder mysteries, stories that start in medias res, magic eyes, postmodern novels, cut up art, or really any art that isn’t entirely linear and explained, which can include naturalistic drama if an antagonists’ motivations aren’t revealed until later)
Perhaps they want you to consider what it means to be a criminal, to observe and interact with a criminal, what it means to serve one’s punishment and the aftermath, what it means to be an ex-criminal, how we imagine our responses to crime (it seems like there’s a bunch of reactions in the poem: rehabilitation, activities in society, removing someone from a cycle, violence, verbal abuse…)
It could also be a reflection on how we use humor to cope — the speaker in the poem knows he’s (friends? accompanying? the officer assigned to?) with a murderer and yet jokes about it - a pretty human thing and an interesting concept for a poem
It also speaks to me of dystopic fiction or experiments in rehabilitation / psychotherapy in the past/present, and the media’s and society’s reaction to such.
Plus, I find it quite amusing even without deeper thought.
Well count me confused. Mainly by the second to last line, the ham implies they are both murderers?
No, I don’t think so. “Would you like a sandwich? … The murderer eats his sandwich” implies the narrator gives him a sandwich. Cheese and ham is a common sandwich.
Nah ham is the flesh of someone else