Common Magic

It is often said that perfection is unachievable. However, perfection can be attained in many ways. In ¡°Common Magic¡± by Bronwen Wallace, the author describes how the positive and negative sides of things make the world perfect. This is shown through themes such as love, interdependence, and society influence. Each of our hamartia is balanced with a strength of parallel value. In the poem, the author states, ¡°Your best falls in love and her brain turns to water.¡± This sentence implies how people don¡¯t think clearly when they are in love with someone, which leaves them vulnerable to make regrettable decisions. However, later on in the stanza the author compliments love by making an allusion to the beauty and rarity of a mermaid through the line, ¡°from some golden sea where she swims sleek and exotic as a mermaid.¡± In the third stanza, the author states,

¡°The old man across from you on the buss holds a young child on his knee; he is singing to her and his voice is a small boy turning somersaults in the green country of his blood. It¡¯s only when the driver calls his stop that he emerges into his puzzle of brick and tiny hedges. Only then you notice his shaking hands, his need of the child to guide him home. ¡±

This quote talks about how no one can be completely independent regardless of what they can do. Our interdependence units us, but it can also become out hamartia if we rely too much on others and lose faith in ourselves. In the middle stanza of the poem, the author states, ¡°you move in your own seasons through the seasons of others.¡± This line insinuates that each decision that we make is influenced by other people to some extend. This society influence can turn out to be good and bad. Each person is like a tree and each decision we make is a branch of the tree. Without a good guidance, it¡¯s very easy for the tree go grow improperly; however, the wrong guidance can also make the tree grow incorrectly. The positive and negative side of things