Oct 18, 2010
The Cremation of Sam McGee
Please provide your interpretation of the poem. Ensure that you have read other posts and come to an understanding and interpretation of the poem. Also be sure to link up unknown words to dictionary.com or wikipedia. Enjoy.
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Before I read the poem...
I was intrigued by the title of the poem. It sounded like it was going to be sad and somewhat of a scary poem.
After I read the poem...
It left me wanting more. I didn't understand exactly why Sam McGee had not burned while being cremated. Because that's the whole point of cremating. I don't understand why the person who was cremating Sam McGee thought he was dead. Before you cremate someone shouldn't you know 100% that the person is dead, so they don't burn to death?
I like the way the words flow and sound so smooth when you say them.
Who is the person talking in the poem? Is it the author?
The first time I read this poem today I did not quite understand it at all , but when I read it the second time , I understood it very well. The way the author wrote this is obviouly in a older style , wich makes it complicated , I think how the author writes this is very clever because he never explains it clearly , he sort of puts it in some sort of riddle or a way that makes it mystical. What happend is pretty "queer" because how can a man come back to life and then stay alive in a fire. I do not still understand why the author wrote this , Im not clear on every aspect of this poem , I dont know the real meaning yet.
I think the big picture is about keeping a promise and that they were close friends because he kept his promise to Sam. The last bit about the cremation was kind of like that was his heaven when he died.
Words:
Hearkened:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hearkened
I think that the poem was slightly odd and strange because the language used was a little old and ancient. I was so confused when the guy opened the door to see the burned up Sam McGee, He was talking and he said to keep the door closed because he loved the heat. It was like he wanted to be burned because that felt better to him than being in the cold. I thought that the description was great and the words went together in perfect rhythm, but the plot is a strange one, and it still has me thinking about,"What the heck just and will happen?"
moil, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moil
I think that the poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is a somewhat disturbing poem, since Sam was dead but when the narrator opened the furnace door Sam was still alive.
Maybe it's his ghost, or maybe Sam wasn't actually dead, maybe he was frozen in a icy shell but the furnace melted it.
I wish the poem was longer so I could find out what happened, but I think that the author wanted us to imagine the ending. I imagine that in the end Sam went back to being dead and actually got cremated.
Oh and also, ot add to my intrepretation, in my opinion, I thiknk the main idea in the poem is that no matter how hard it can be, a promise is a promise, and true friends are the ones who always keep them.
Interesting title. So I thought the poem was going to be a little sad and gory which it was because when you cremate someone you have to burn they're remains into chemicals and bone fragments. I think that his buddy did the right thing to take him on dogsled and cremate him in the boat but also like Sierra i think he should of made sure he was dead but also i think he froze to a point where his friend thought he was dead but when he warmed up in the fire all his systems came back out of "hibernation" and when his friend came back and found him sitting up and talking to him.
I am wondering why this guy suddenly comes back to life sitting in a fire and talks to his friend for a bit and isn't dead or screaming at the top of his lungs because he is getting burnt?
The author of this poem did a great job of getting the whole poem to flow and every so often rhyme the middle of some sentences.
and Sierra the friend of Sam McGee is telling the story because he is explaining about how he promised to cremate his friends body.
Thanks Jon. I love all the comments being posted. It gives me everyone elses perspectives. Thanks for the people who are putting up unknown words!!!!!!! :)
Oh, sorry, ot is actually to. My bad, but you get my point...
To tell you the truth i don't really understand this poem 100%. All I basically understand is that Sam Mcgee left Tennessee and on Christmas day he went mushing over the Dawson trail. Sam told his friend with him that "foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains. I don't really understand the rest of the story well so yeah.
I think when he was cremated, he wasn't alive and that was sort of
his ghost or his spirit or something like that...
I thought the topic Robert wrote about was very interesting. I'm not sure whether Sam died or not, because the other person in the poem thought he was dead, but Sam talked after he was in the fire. It might the imagination of the other person's perspective, but I'm not quite sure. I think the author wrote it really well, because it was descriptive without using too many words. I'm not sure if anyone realized, but this poem is a rhyming poem. Which I found neat. I think the meaning of this poem is that you should keep your promises to anyone no matter how hard you want to break them and true friends all have each other's backs through life and death.
That is a possibility Sofia. I also wish that the poem was longer. I really wanted to know what happened next!!
I agree with Aggie. It sound s little strange but by the sounds of the poem, the author is a little cooky in the head. But that's not saying I don't enjoy the poem. It's just too "out there" for me.
I think Sam was going on a trip with his freind, but the cold was to much for him. So he ended up dying. This poem had a lot of rhyme to it, some peoms don't have that element. Thats part of the reason I like this poem. I also liked it because the end has an unusual twist. Its almost as if Sam died twice. Once on the sled and then agin in the furnace.
Also I thought that the kanguage in the poem was pretty easy to understand except for a few words like "derelict" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/derelict) and "marge" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marge)
"cooky" is with a K...=)
At first i didn't understand the poem... wouldn't it be kinda scary, expecially after the last line of the chrorus( i don't know what to call it) I CREMATED SAM MCGEE. Isn't that kind of creepy? So then i read the poem and understood. I guess cause Tenessee(south) has definetly different weather to the north. So he asks to be cremated. I'm not quite sure if Sam is dead or not??? Some poems have quotations meaning that they are talking but it might not mean that he is alive... I like the poem's format. And how it all the words sound nice together. So the moral i think is that a promise is a promise.
I thought that this was a very well written poem because it was very intriguing.My favorite thing about this poem was the fact that it has a nice flow.
I agree with Tom when he says that the creamator is crazy or Sam McGee being dead is a metaphor.
I think that the cremation just unfroze Sam or he had hypothermia and got warmed up.
Maybe the heat wasn't all that hot to burn him.
srry,im not done,accidentaly commented :P
For Vivian,
I think that it is up to the reader to decide if he died or not, which he probably did, because the author probably left it unfinished for us to think about what's next.
I agree with agatha, i dont think he is alive...
i thought this poem was... interesting. i agree with Agatha about it being about keeping a promise to a friend. i didnt really understand what happened at the end. HOW was Sam there??? i dont get it at all. also if the guy didnt like the cold, why did he move to the north pole???
i think the way it was written was pretty cool. i liked how the words in each line rhymed with other words in the same line, so it sounds nice when you read it.
Rohini, there actully is more books written my this guy about Sam McGee. btw, :)
I thought that this poem gives you a lot to think about especially the first and last paragraph.Also the words is this poem though somewhat confusing made it better and more real because it was a little bit of old english and modern day english mashed together. The words i didn't understand were derelict, moil, marge and hearkened which i am about to look up on dictionary.com... Overall i really liked this poem because it was well written and showed what a true friend is all about.
I think it's neat though how everyone has a different perspective on the poem, but everyone still has the same general idea what the meaning was.
The Cremation of Sam MccGee
The stroy from Robert Sevice was a very stange and interesting poem. I think it showed the manners of folks that search for gold up north, as the story takes place during a certain gold rush. It seems that as they where up north in the cold, Sam knew that his end was coming, and not wanting an inglorious death where he would be left in the snow, he asked his friend to cremate him. I wonder how he knew he was about to die. I enjoyed the way Robert Service portrayed the harsh environment, give it a surreal and a somewhat "alien" atmosphere, as not too many people have been up to the Arctic. It made me think about a strange place, and finding it wondrous and strange, yet beutiful like the sky. He showed what extremes some folks went to, just to recieve a share of the wealth of gold at the time. Also, he gave a strong image of a great friendship, as Sam's friend had no need to cremate Sam, but took the initiaive to give his buddy a good resting place and not breaking his promise. I disagree with some people saying that Sam was alive and well. During the end, when Sam's friend opens the door to check how Mr McGee was doing and saw him to be alive and well, i think that was a figment of his friends imagination, as it is phsycally impossible to be alive when being burnt like that.
The way the poem was writtin in an old english fashion so the first time i read "The Creamation of Sam McGee" I didn't understand it that well. But the second I read it, I read it really slowly and tried to interpreated it. I think the main message of the poem is that once a promise is made, it is too late to turn back no matter the obsticals.
I really like this poem even tho its kind of confusing and it flowed really really smoothly. But still I don't understand how Sam was still alive in the creamatorium and why he said whatever he said, that was kind of creepy.
Looking at all of my classmates now give me the main picture , that a promise is a promise and should be full filled and especially by a best friend.
i think if u go behind the acual story (which im not going to tell u guys because its a recount)is to keep promises even if nobodies there to keep u from doing it. so then if u could rely on people every body could establish trust in people not to do or or to do certain stuff.
Ya, i think thats pretty cool too vivian! :)
Moil:
Transitive verb
to moisten or soil
Noun
1.drudgery; hard work
2.confusion; turmoil
Queer
Odd, homosexual , strange
ya that is adnd its funny how every minute i have 2 keep on refreshing thje page cuz every one has a new post very minute!!
I think that them story was about his personality because when he was in Tennessie he was cold. But when he was dead his ghost was a happy person. I think some of the times the author meant he was actually cold but mainly his personality.
well im going to continue with sierra's ideas after i say this: i dont exactly thing, sierra, that sam was actually alive, I beleive that it was either the cremator's imagination or a metaphor of how sam's soul could move on in peace now that he was away from the dreadful cold. and the person narrating was the cremator.
Back to my response...
when it started i wasnt sure how it was going to play out but i was sure that it was going to rhyme.(tom make funny sarcastic comment:D ) anyway when i heard that the story had somthing to do with gold and north I had but one thought in my head....GOLD RUSH IN ALASKA!!!! after that the cold rushed into my mind and it became clear that I would need a fire to warm up just as much as Mcgee did.
there were a few things that struck me right off the bat. (the alaskan gold rush being one of them)
1.this narrator is going to have one heck-of-a story to tell when he gets home.
2.when sam said he wanted to be cremated i think he knew at that point that he was going to die.
3. when i saw the picture of the alive mcgee i sank down in my chair; he is getting burnt alive. but it turned out he wasnt.
this whole cremation thing really made me think about how my grandfather was cremated up in the north. this story also reminded me a lot of this one movie i saw when i was younger where someone died and after people burried him, they started to think he may have been alive.
one more short thing
when, at start of the story when the author used the word moil it wasnt used neccesarily in a negative way towards the "men who moil for gold". usually when a story says "who moils for" i generally think: he's greedy, i bet he'll be th antagionist.
thnx for sitting through that!
-tom J-l
thought that this was a very well written poem because it was very intriguing.My favorite thing about this poem was the fact that it has a nice flow.
I agree with Tom when he says that the creamator is crazy or Sam McGee being dead is a metaphor.
If it is a metaphor I think it is when Sam McGee says;
"Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
I think this is a metaphor for Sam McGee being in peace.
I liked the use of words in this poem.There was two words that I did not understand.They were moil and queer.
The definition of moil is to suffer and sacrficice in a negative way,to get what you desire.
The definition of queer is something odd.
This poem reminds me of the creamations in India and in other places that are done by piling wood around the body and lighting it on fire.
Thanks for reading :)
GREAT RESPONSES GUYS. HERE'S ANOTHER INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST FEW STANZAS...
Stanza 1
In this opening stanza, Service sets a mood of mystery and suspense. By using words like strange, midnight, and secret, and phrases like “make your blood run cold, ““queer sights, “ and “the queerest I ever did see, “ the reader anticipates that something unnerving will occur. The final line of the stanza (“I cremated Sam McGee. “) suggests a violent end to Sam McGee and the involvement of the speaker in that death. Even before Service uses the word “cold, “ he chills the reader by introducing the “midnight sun, “ “the Arctic trails, “ and “the Northern Lights. “ The inclusion of icy Lake LaBarge reinforces the feeling of coldness.
Stanzas 2-3
Service introduces Sam McGee. Hailing from the warm South, Sam is always cold in the Yukon. There appears to be some confusion as to why Sam left his warm Southern home. He says “he’d sooner live in hell, but this land of gold holds him “like a spell. “ Interestingly, it is “the land of gold, “not the gold itself, that has this strange hold on Sam McGee. The Christmas Day trip over the Dawson trail begins the action of the poem in a bitter, menacing cold. The speaker describes the cold in stark, uncompromising terms “it stabbed like a driven nail “and froze eyelashes shut. “It wasn’t much fun,“ adds the speaker, and the other mush-ers recognize the hazards of this way of life. They don’t complain, but Sam not only complains, he “whimpers. “
Try listening to this version online tonight....
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5672398&ft=1&f=1
then click on "listen" - make sure you have sound.
I noticed that there was some spelling mistakes/typos in a lot of the posts. I think I got them all, let me know if I missed some...=)
creamation-cremation
obiouvly-obviously
wich-which
im-I'm
dont-don't
they're remains-their
friends body-friend's
elses-else's
cooky-kooky
freind-friend
to much-too much
peoms-poems
expecially-especially
chrorus-chorus
definetly-definitely
favorite-favourite
agin-again
kanguage-language
kinda-kind of
creamator-cremator
accidentaly-accidentally
actully-actually
stroy-story
stange-strange
folks-isn't a word
they where-they were
inglorious-not a word
wondrous-wonderous
beutiful-beautiful
recieve-receive
physycally-physically
interpreated-interpreted
obsticals-obstacles
tho-though
creamatorium-crematorium
full filled-fulfilled
acual-actual
nobodies-not a word
every body-everybody
adnd-and
thje-the
post very minute-every
Tennessie-Tennesee
beleive-believe
somthing-something
burried-buried
wasnt-wasn't
antagionist-antagonist
th-the
sacrficice-sacrifice
I think I got them all....
Most of them were probably typos or abbreviations.
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