Lone Soldier

Carlos Espinoza

January 25, 2010

ENL 3

Andrew Hageman

Lone Soldier

The Machinima amplified the effects of Langston Hughes’ poem “Suicide Note.” The Machinima added a visual for the poem allowing the poem to be more easily interpreted and understood. The video game scenery illustrated the message and meaning that the author would have wanted to transcend to the reader through careful analysis of the poem.

After reading the poem and watching the video many times I was able to piece them successfully piece them together. The Machinima depicts a Halo character standing on top of a high rock facing a river. He looks up at the sky and then down at the river right before he decides to jump off the rock into the river. Looking up toward the sky could be the character looking for a sign of higher power, contemplating if he should take away his own life. I also noticed the connection between the video game and the title of the poem. Jumping off of something that high would kill the character in the video game, which is also what the poem seems to be about, suicide.

The machinima stays true to the tone of the poem by accompanying its words with appropriate images and sounds. The images of the individual committing suicide by jumping off of the tall rock and into a river as well as the song in the background of the video created a lonely and depressing feeling that one could imaging feeling right before a suicide, coinciding directly with the tone of the poem.

I tried looking for an example of poetry in pop culture. The most that I could come up with were a bit of song lyrics. “Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are fighting in the Captain’s tower”-Bob Dylan “Desolation Row”.