Chananan Sanamchai (Praew) 1202

On The Desolate Field

In The Desolate Field, Williams captures the disillusionment of the narrator through the

useless action of the goat. Like all of the Modernist, Williams also believed that, for what we cannot

see, hear, or touch, we cannot prove its existence. The poem is set in a dead, grey field where the

sky is enormous and grey. There is a goat that is trying to find something among the dried grasses.

Then, the narrator start to question himself. In the middle of the poem, it says, In the tall, dried

grasses/ a goat stirs/ with nozzle searching the ground. (5-7). At this point, the poem is showing

the situation where the goat is finding some grasses to eat, then the narrator remarks, my head is

in the air/ but who am I? (8-9). The first quote is use to shows that the narrators action, which is

finding the answer for the meaning of his life, is useless because it is not possible to find, like the

goat that cannot finds grasses to eat because in the dead field, there are only dried grasses.

Abstract ideas like meaning or purpose cannot be proved that they exist because they are nowhere

to be seen or heard, like the green grasses that cannot be found. However, the goat does not realize

that what it does is useless but in contrast, the narrator does know. This is why the narrator feels

disillusionment as he questioned himself about his existence because no one is responsible for his

lifes meaning but himself. He cannot knows that meaning or purpose do exist or not, which leave

him with a question: Does he has a purpose?