Creative Response:
Write a character analysis of Peter. Who is he? How does he think? Why is he so tortured? What is Peter's problem? Try to figure this poor guy out. [Analysis of the poem "About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter"
by Charles Bukowski]Write a character analysis of Peter. Who is he? How does he think? Why is he so tortured? What is Peter's problem? Try to figure this poor guy out. [Analysis of the poem "About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter"
I believe Peter is a very creative person based on the fact that his work has been featured and he has been interviewed for magazines.
A problem he faces is he’s very self conscious about himself and what people think of him. To the point where he isn't sure when to talk about himself, his “talent” or his knowledge. Your can see this in how he gets irritated with the salesman. In the text he corrects the salesman, then insults him for not knowing who created Fidelio. Trying to show how much more he knows than the person twice his age. Hoping it will make him feel better than someone, a feeling that doesn't come often for him.
A big problem that Peter faces, like many creative people is the fear of failing and not “making it.” He is not fully willing to take the risk and try to make the jump, quit his job (that he hates), go in the small room and do the thing, he wants to feel secure. He is also afraid that turning his passion into a job will not translate well. Instead of being something of ease and interest, adding the working mentality will make him lose his interest and no longer being creative.
Almost every artist has trouble with the decision to make the jump and try make a living out of their passion, but adding a self conscious questioning of themselves will never help. There is a high chance he will not make that jump, and will regret not even trying. He’s filled with doubts, mainly about him, by him. I too believe that Peter is a very tortured person.
Another reason I believe that Peter doesn't want to make the jump, is because he is “entertained” with the place he is in. Right now, he is not being compared to professionals, he is just being compared to his fellow citizen. Making him seem and feel better. Once In a professional position, his work will be criticized and questioned, not praised. he is already questioning his own work, and he might not be ready to hear someone else question it too.
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I feel the reason that I feel like I understand this character, is because I relate to this character. I think every artist can relate to this character. I honestly don’t think that Peter is a character, more an actual part of every artist or person in one way or another.
This is a very good analysis, with personal connection made, and nice insight into motivation based on Bukowski's view of the character. Level 4-
ReplyDeleteHe is not necessarily a tortured person, I believe he makes that of himself without need, and that the title is a pure irony of Bukowski. "About my very tortured friend, peter". We can almost see the look Bukowski makes to his fellow friend; he has already been there, in that situation, with his mind clouded by dreams and doubt, when younger and with greater expectation. Its like that poem, "Self-inflicted wounds", another poem bukowski writes about his youth, and at that time, friend, and his perspective on what writing and life was. There's a line in that poem, "my stories were jagged, harsh, with self-inflicted wounds". Self inflicted wounds is really the key here. Peter lives in a state of self inflicted agony and dillusion, a mentality clearly hard do relinquish. That's why he insults so harshely the other salesman. But its clear that Bukowski sees Peter as a fool, especially when better analysing the scene between the woman, peter and the salesman. repair that bukowski didn't even question the salesman lack of knowledge when peter told him. he questioned instead the way peter dealed with the woman, noticing how he angrily left the place, "leaving him there with her". its incredible how bukowski can really punch you in the gut with one sentence left unanswered. "“you mean you left him there with her? / yes.” Simple, hard, he doesn't even criticize him. He only lets us feel his silence, after that "yes", and its all it takes. He sees peter as he sees anyone, just another person that glorifies the position of the writer and knowledge. But Bukowski doesn't trust the cultural person, he despises the academic, the only school he truly accepts as a influence of his work is the school of life, of how you live. Of course Peter is a fool in his opinion. Bukowski would never left a girl alone with another guy. He probably gives more credit to the salesman. hell yeah, he got the girl and that's all it matters. But he has empathy for Peter, of course. after all, he was once like that, and bukowki must have a great deal of empathy with this kind of characters, since he liked Knut Hamsun's book "Hunger" and Dostoievsky's "Notes from the Underground", books that specificaly tell stories of men whose soul are so badly divided between doubt, between who they really are and what they think of themselves, both seeing themselves as something higher because of their culture and education. But like bukowski, both writers almost mock these characters, and so Bukowski does, here. "tortured". sure, we all are, if we are mindset on that feeling. but bukowski values people tortured by life, not by their own mind, when such thing is not necessary. that's why he doesn't tolerate most poetry, they lack true feeling borned from true situations. peter really thinks things matter, that life matters. but it doesn't. and bukowski knows it. The only fool is the one who doesn't act and excuses himself with his own advantages, only fooling himself: that's peter. I am portuguese, and there's a portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, one of the greats, and he has a line: "The world is for those born to conquer it, not for those who dream to conquer it, even if they're right." Peter has a long road ahead, he needs the slap in the face bukowski got, again and again, the life experience to strenghten him. We can smell his naivety, and so does bukowski.
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