Blog Fifteen

"Miniver Cheevy" is about a man who has not achieved much in his life. Instead of taking fault for not doing much with his life, he blames it on the fact that nothing exciting has happened in his life span. He claims that he was just born at the wrong time. If he lived back in the romantic past, he would have been more successful (Robinson). I think that this was just an excuse. Nothing exciting ever happens unless people make it exciting. If you want a worthwhile life, then you have to go out and make it that way. Sitting at home waiting for something exciting will not get you any where. I think the following stanza helps prove my point that Miniver Cheevy was just using excuses to explain his boring life:

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,

Scratched his head and kept on thinking;

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,

And kept on drinking

(Robinson). I think that Emerson and Thoreau were not like Miniver Cheevy at all. Robinson's character Minister Cheevy did not do anything with his life. He waited around and decided that it was fate that he had a boring life. On the other hand, Thoreau and Emerson did the complete opposite. They each participated in war to better their country. That is a very worth while thing to do with life. They each fell in love and were successful with their lives. Emerson and Thoreau did not wait around for something to happen, they jumped into action and made their live exciting.

If this poem reflects E.A. Robinson, it is not a very nice thing to think about a person. Robinson makes his character seem lazy and full of excuses. Maybe Robinson got the idea for the character from a friend or acquaintance. That would make more sense since a writer usually does not write negatively about himself. Robinson wrote about how Minister Cheevy "dreamed and rested from his labors" (Robinson). He may have been having a midlife crisis and deciding how he needs to go find excitement in his life.

Robinson, E.A. ""Miniver Cheevy" by E.A. Robinson." The Poem Tree: An Online Poetry Anthology. Web. 02 Mar. 2012. .