1. I think that Felicite is both a saint and a simple-minded servant. But I think that she is somewhat inadvertently a saint and less so one than a simple-minded servant. She is very naïve towards the events happening around her, such as the short love story and the love for an annoying parrot, but the way she deals with these events makes her a saint, in that she manages to do the noble things. In a way, it is a situation where ignorance is bliss. Although she gets herself into odd situations, she never does anything wrong nor spectacular.
2. Although both Chidam and Chandara and Rama and Sita are seemingly “made for each other,” a very distinct difference is the ways in which the husbands treat their wives. Rama always seemed to contemplate his wife’s feelings and try to accommodate her, even if she did not decide to listen. Chidam, on the other hand, acts quickly without thinking of consequences.
3. Yeat’s poem “When You are Old” is about an old woman who misses her love. I find it interesting that the first and third stanzas are in the future and use a lot of words dealing with nighttime and sleep, while the second stanza is in the past tense and uses a beauty motif. This leaves the reader in the middle, present time, when the passion is seemingly lost, but the lover is still there. This poem made me feel weird, because I have not experienced any of these experiences in the poem, so instead of being “stuck” in the present of the poem, I haven’t begun the journey in the poem, which is both a nostalgic and hopeful feeling.
I felt the same “stuck” feeling after reading this poem. It was a sweet little poem though.