Collective and individual conflict in the poem, "The Yachts"? The Yachtscontend in a sea which te land partly enclosesshielding them from the...

In William Carlos William's poem, "The Yachts," there is
conflict seen between man and nature as ships battle the powerful
ocean.

...an
ungoverned ocean which when it chooses...

tortures the
biggest hulls, the best man knows

to pit against its
beatings, and sinks them
pitilessly.

There is also the
conflict between men as the yachts race each other, trying to
win...

The
yachts...

move, jockeying for a start, the signal is set
and they

are
off.

However, soon the mood
of the poem shifts dramatically. There are images of bodies in the water—in agony. This
representation by Williams may be symbolic, showing a collective
conflict.

The
race is finally shown to be a symbol of human struggle, in which the masses are cut down
and destroyed.

There are not
really bodies in the water, but the yachts symbolize the wealthy, suggesting "a
privileged life"—those who own yachts—running over the lower classes, "an exploited
class" that works so hard, making the wealth of the "privileged"
possible.

However, Elisabeth Schneider finds even deeper
meaning in William's poem, drawing attention to J. M. W. Turner's
painting called "The Slave Ship." She believes that Williams admired Turner's work, and
because his own mother was an art student in Paris at one time, she thinks it is logical
to assume that Williams was familiar with the painting. However, in this case, the
"yacht" symbolizes the affluent slave traders, amassing their fortunes from the
trafficking in human bondage, another much older, collective
conflict.

The shift toward the end of the poem points
decidedly to human suffering. "The Slave Ship" shows the ocean littered with the bodies
of slaves after a storm. Schneider writes, "It seems probable that this association does
in fact underlie the poem…"

John Ruskin was a "leading
English art critic" who gained a great deal of notice with an essay he wrote
in Modern Painters (1843), which defended Turner's work, arguing
that "...the principal role of the artist is 'truth to
nature'."

Ruskin commented that the painting
represented...

readability="7">

...a sunset on the Atlantic, after prolonged
storm…[The ship] is a slaver throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is encumbered
with corpses.

Schneider notes
that she has not found any printed references by Williams regarding Modern
Painters, but that she has found passages in his published letters that
"describe sky and sea in strongly Ruskinese
terms."

Elisabeth Schneider's association between Turner's
painting "The Slave Ships" and William Carlos William's "The Yachts" provides another
possible insight into the conflict presented in the
poem.

Additional
Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin