Part 1
The vehicle of the text can take on several forms. It can come in the shape of metaphor, imagery, or symbolism. Regardless of form, the vehicle is the surface layer of the text. It is stated, not implied. The vehicle acts as a method to deliver a subtle concept. The tenor, on the other hand, is the undertone of the text. It is what can be inferred from the vehicle. For example Berryman writes “after all, the sky flashes, the great sea years, we ourselves flash and yearn.” The image conjured by this line is the vehicle. The tenor takes a little more thought to derive. This line implies that man and his environment are one and the same. Man can no more detach himself from his surroundings than the sky can from the sea at the horizon. Man is subject to his environment and takes on the characteristics of it. He flashes and yearns along with it. Another example can be found in Bishop’s poem, The Bight. Bishop writes “Pelicans crash into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard, it seems to me, like pickaxes, rarely coming up with anything to show for it.” This description of crashing birds is the vehicle of the text. This vehicle serves to deliver the tenor through the poem. The tenor, then, is the underlying idea of the line. In this case, it is a line of reflection. It is reflecting on past labors that have failed. Although the pelicans dive hard, they return without the fruits of their labor.
Part 2
The use of figurative language serves as an alternative way of thinking about events. Often, events are simply stated. The accepted view of history places it as a chronological set of events that occur at set places and involved only a few key actors. It overlooks the complexity of the past and instead simplifies it into something that can easily fit into a textbook. History becomes an unquestionable, superficial study where everything within it is stated as fact. The use of figurative language allows one to draw individualized conclusions from the text. This allows for history to become more subjective, which can be argued is a problem as it could increase the chance for bias. Still, it allows for a person to connect at a deeper level to the event as he is not just reciting names and dates, but actually reacting to the concepts elicited by the event.
The myth that everything can be explained by a surface examination is both naïve and detrimental. During the cold war, American culture attempted to understand the cultures found is Asia. However, by not looking into the subtle nuances of the cultures they were not able to see the people as they truly were. This way of thinking lead Americans to pile all Asian societies together into one large, homogenized mass. The doxa then became that all Asian societies are the same and that they can all be treated as one group holding the same ideals and values.
Heartland 