Clinging to the Impossible

Here is my essay about the poem below and The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. I finally typed it up, and didn't change anything except a spelling error near the end. 

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'I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon'

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

Round and round they sped.

I was disturbed at this;

I accosted the man.

"It is futile," I said,

"You can never—"

"You lie," he cried,

And ran on.

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

   Stephen Crane's poem, "I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon", talks about a man trying to reach the horizon, ignoring the fact that it is an impossible task. The man accuses the narrator/poet of lying to him  when he is told that his mission is in vain. He truly believes he can reach the horizon, and this belief clouds his mind from the unfortunate, scientific truth. The world is round, and the man will run after his goal forever, never being satisfied.

   The first thing that I think of when I try to link this poem to the Bridge of San Luis Rey, is the Marquesa. Like the man in the poem, the Marquesa has a dream that makes everything else in her life lose importance. She pursues the love of her daughter. She is so obsessed with this imaginary bond she wants to have with her daughter that she ignores every single thing around her. She does not notice Pepita, how the public teases her, or how her maids steal from her house. And until she learns about Pepita's letter, she cannot be convinced that all she believes in is impossible, and she has to observe other things around her other than her daughter.

   Secondly, Uncle Pio comes to mind. His impossible dream revolves around the elegant Camila Perichole. Although their relationship is very complicated, Uncle Pio loves her in some way. He believes he has made Camila who she is, and I think he likes having control over such a great woman. He wants to please her, and be loved and respected by her, and have some sort of effect on her life at all times. He does not only run after her, but also what he thinks she could become. Even after the Perichole leaves to live in her own house far away from everything, he finds her and tries to talk to her, no matter how often she rejects him. He is worried because his connection with her is cut off. He cannot accept the fact that Camila wants to be her own person and make her own decisions, and therefore keeps running after her like a lost puppy.

   The poem could also relate to Esteban and Manuel. When Manuel's leg is infected, and Esteban has to apply the painful treatment procedure, they are both chasing the weak hope that Manuel will be alright. I don't think any patient would want to go through such pain, and no man would want to cause a loved one the torture, unless they truly believed the patient would make it through. This incident made them forget their bickering about Camila Perichole, and really concentrate on each other; two halves of a whole. And yet it was all a happy dream. The light of their hope was put out by the closing of Manuel's eyes, his eyelids like curtains being pulled across a stage at the end of a play named "Life and All My Dreams". 

   The biggest example of this is Brother Juniper. He believes that the people who died on the accident on the Bridge of San Luis Rey, were all meant to be there. He thinks it was done on purpose by God, and they were all fated to die there on that day. He believes in this so much that he spends years of his life researching the incident, writing a book about it, and later on being killed for his belief.

   All the characters in the book have this false hope, this "futile" goal they pursue, which corrupts them and their vision of the world. They are so obsessed with one light, that they can only see the starts after it is extinguished. They can never be satisfied as long as their faith in their ideas continues to block their view. They will forever run after their purposes unless they gain another one, like how the man in the poem will run on and on until his legs will not carry him.