Introduction
Enterprise is a philosophical poem of Nissim Ezekiel. It was first published in 1960 in collection ‘The Unfinished Man’. This poem portrays a symbolical journey.
Central Idea
The central message poem conveys is that we tend to roam everywhere in life to get the satisfaction in life by achieving a so called goal. But satisfaction is best attained at home with your loved ones. Over that any goal how lucrative it was seems lack lustered after it is achieved.
Themes
1. Home is place of satisfaction – ‘Home is where you have to gather Grace’. This line sums up the whole poem. It is the main theme of the poem. We may go anywhere in life to achieve our goals to get satisfaction in life but even after achieving targets a person feels unrelieved. He/she gets the ultimate satisfaction by living with the loved ones at home. Even those people who search for God and visit pilgrimages don’t need to wander for that. God resides inside them which can be attained at home too.
2. Journey of life – This has it’s one of the important theme is journey of life. People start their life enthusiastically but as the problem emerges they become confused and directionless. Ultimately even after achieving the goal at the end of life during old age they find their achievements as ordinary and commonplace. This happens in life with most of the people.
3. United we stand divided we fall – Poem also has this theme of unity makes hurdles easy but division makes us weak and the task becomes extremely tough. Poet’s group starts braking when their prose writer friend leaves it. Later on ‘A section claimed its liberty/To leave the group’. Such divisions make the task difficult for rest of the members. It happened in the poem and when the rest of the group reached their destination they already has lost the interest in their achievement.
Literary Devices
- Simile – In the very first line poet has compared his journey to a pilgrimage.
- Alliteration – ‘minds and making’, ‘we stood it very well’, ‘Another phase was reached when we/Were twice attacked, and lost our way’, When, finally, we reached the place , We hardly know why we were there’, ‘noticed nothing’, ‘gather grace’ etc. have alliteration as they all have repetition of consonant sounds at the starting of words.
- Consonance – ‘noticed nothing’, ‘gather grace’ etc.
- Metaphor – ‘sun’ and ‘Desert patch’ are used for hurdles in our life or journey towards a goal. Similarly ‘serpents and goats’ are metaphors for clever (full of evilness) and simple people respectively.
Symbolism
This whole poem is full of various symbols. Even the title of the poem in itself can be seen as a symbol for any enterprise in life be it a specific goal or the whole life itself. Apart from it sun and desert are symbols for obstacles and problems we face in a particular enterprise.
Structure and Rhyme scheme
The poem has six stanzas and each stanza has five lines. It has rhyme scheme of ABABA pattern.
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