16 pages • 32 minutes read
Lawrence FerlinghettiSometime During Eternity . . .
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1958A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Tree
The cross upon which Jesus is crucified is euphemistically referred to as “the Tree” by the speaker multiple times throughout the poem (Lines 35, 38, 48, and 50). “The Tree”—or the Cross—is the poem’s most significant symbol, as it functions on two levels depending on whether one approaches the story from a place of skepticism or of belief. For the speaker and other skeptics, the Cross is no more than a “Tree” because it was literally made of wood; referring to it as such gives the speaker’s account of the crucifixion an irreverent and humorous tone, suggesting that there is nothing special or mystical about it.
However, for the believers the speaker describes in the poem, the Cross takes on a metaphysical meaning as well as a literal one: It becomes an icon of religious devotion and serves as a reminder of their hope in the Second Coming of Jesus at the end of the world. These two differing—and conflicting—interpretations of the Cross and what it represents embodies the tension between skepticism and belief in the poem (See: Themes), while adding yet another layer to the ways in which the same story can be retold and reinterpreted in myriad ways.
Messianism
Messianism is a recurring motif in the poem, as the problem of whether or not Jesus is divine is at the heart of the poem’s main narrative. Interestingly, the speaker does not claim that the Jesus figure explicitly identifies himself as the Messiah, although he does claim to have profound metaphysical knowledge and divine lineage (Lines 9-14). Rather, Jesus’s messianism is a later attribute that his followers give to him, as witnessed by the ways they venerate the Cross and “call[] Him to come down” (Line 41). These references are an allusion to the story of the Resurrection, in which it is claimed that Jesus did not die a permanent death on the Cross, but instead rose from the tomb three days later. While the poem ends with the speaker referencing rumors that Jesus is actually “real dead” (Line 57) and therefore neither divine nor the Messiah, his followers’ belief that he is a god suggests that the narrative of messianism is an irresistible story for many.
Means of Communication
Ferlinghetti employs the motif of various means of communication to illustrate the ways stories can be retold and reshaped over the centuries when passed from person to person and from generation to generation. There are the direct, autobiographical, first-person claims made by Jesus himself to his contemporaries. Usually, such accounts are considered the most reliable, since there is less chance of a message being confused in the telling of a firsthand story.
There is the second-hand retelling of the Jesus story and the different interpretations of it by the poem’s speaker. The allusions to the Dead Sea Scrolls—“some scroll-type parchments / which some henchmen / leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres” (Lines 21-23)—refer to written modes of communication as another means of telling and preserving stories. The Scrolls are notable as they contain parts of nearly every book in the Christian Bible’s Old Testament, as well as the earliest version of the Ten Commandments. The discovery of the Scrolls is considered one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century.
Finally, at the end of the poem, the speaker refers to “a roundup / of late world news” (Lines 54-55), which is suggestive of modern mass means of communication in the mid-20th century, such as newspapers and television broadcasts. Yet since even these modern means of communication are still based on “the usual unreliable sources” (Line 56), the speaker slyly suggests that while the means of communication may change over time, the inherent unpredictability and dynamism of information and storytelling more broadly still remains the same.
