| Dar Williams – Holly Tree Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Trying to figure out what this song means, so I've got some thoughts on interpretation as well as some questions. Emily is clearly a pregnant farm widow, and a devout Christian one at that (singing hymns and being joined by heavenly choirs in her moment of need). She is relying on her soon-to-be born child to help her keep her farm, where she wants to stay despite her husband's death. This is why the narrator is hopeful that the child will cast a long shadow. But she can't wait for the child to come naturally; she needs him to arrive asap before the authorities arrive to take her into custody for witchcraft (a ploy to steal her land). So she takes the tansy and chamomile to induce contractions and labor.* She's hoping that with a child they might let her stay on the farm, or maybe she just doesn't want to give birth in prison (which would probably result in both of them dying). And she is in a major rush, because the forces are gathered and she can hear them coming with an extra horse in tow to take her away. That baby needs to come now. I imagine that either the baby dies during labor or is born and sent to prison with his mother (where he either dies or is given to someone else after his mother's death). Certainly, as we know from the coda, baby and mother are not living happily ever after--the ploy did not work, for whatever reason. The upshot is the lack of compassion greedy folks have for struggling people, including widows and infant children, despite what we all assume should be their Christian compassion. Even if they would have been softened at the sight of a small child, the mother (and/or the child) could have died as a result of the attempt to deliver early. How callous are we, that we put people in positions where their best bet is to risk their lives? And the new farmer's wife in the last verse can sense not only the tragedy of the previous owner and appreciate its lingering mystery (What happened to that baby?), but is newly awakened to the coldness of what is supposed to be warm. She's heard the stories, and understood what they really show--her narrative/myth of domesticity has been demystified. What I don't understand, still, is the role of the doctor. It makes sense that he'd be able to help in delivery of an early child, and that he'd be sympathetic ("kind to us farm widows"). But why then must he be secretive about where he's going ("careful which way he goes")? Maybe he's afraid of angering the authorities? *Even if tansy and chamomile are now known to be abortifacients in sufficient doses, it doesn't seem like that's the intent: after all the last line of that very same verse is the wish to save the baby. Unless there's another child already in the picture and Emily is trying to terminate the pregnancy so she can take care of the one she has. But why then would that already-alive child be described as "a baby" (emphasis on "a")? And why would the child who helps her reap and sow be "a" child as well? It seems there must be only one child in the picture, and it's the one she's carrying. So it seems to me like they are trying to induce labor, not perform an abortion. |
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