The curse of Adam - The destiny of each, the tragedy of eachThe allusion to the biblical story of Adam and Eve in William Butler Yeats's poem, "The Curse of Adam", reflects the pessimism of the poem. theme: the tragic nature of destiny. In history, Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, had defied God and, as a result, had been expelled from paradise. Their punishment (and as descendants, everyone's punishment and "destiny") was to experience the joys and pains of being human, including love and happiness, but also work and disappointment. Yeats parallels this tragedy of Adam and Eve's new mortality with a narrative consisting primarily of a conversation about the difficulties of writing poetry, being beautiful, and remaining in love. By connecting the two stories, he implies that such efforts are not only laborious aspects of life, but can also be "destined" to end or fail. Yeats further establishes the inevitability of something ending by setting the conversation "at the end of a summer" (1) and later having the speakers watch "the last embers of daylight die » (29) when the conversation itself dies down. Before the conversation dies, however, Yeats's character begins the speech with the subject of the poetry. What is interesting is that they do not compose verses together, but discuss the final result of the lines of the poems. Depending on the character, the process of creating poetry, including hours spent writing and rewriting lines, or as Yeats says, "stitching and unstitching" (6), will ultimately be meaningless if the lines fail. Although he considers the act of writing poetry to be more difficult than physical labor, he prefers "scrubbing the pavement of a kitchen" (8) or doing other labor-intensive work , but degrading, rather than working in the middle of paper. ..... her despair in accepting that her destiny and that of her lover would grow "As weary as this hollow moon" (38). The fact that this line, and not a happy, optimistic ending, closes the poem further emphasizes the tragedy. Yeats's dark turn towards the end of the poem is also indicative of what makes fate sometimes tragic: its unpredictability. Just as Adam was ignorant of the consequences of eating the forbidden apple, a poet does not know how good or bad a poem will be until it is finished. Similar to the fleeting notion of beauty, love can easily fade. The fact that all these efforts could be rewarding makes this sudden loss an unbearable, and therefore “tragic,” fate. Work cited Yeats, William Butler. “The Curse of Adam.” West wind. 4th ed. Ed. John Frederick Nims and David Mason. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2000. 431-32.