How does the poet present the beauty of flowers in the poem, The Lotus?
Answers
The lotus is a national symbol of India and the Hindu faith. The overall theme of the poem is the pride of India’s culture and Hindu religion and presenting the beauty of flowers. The idea of Hindu being the ultimate religion of the world is the main focus of “The Lotus”. Hinduism is polytheistic in nature and beliefs are practiced through idol worship. The idols can be human, animal or natural, such as the Sun God. Each idol has a form of symbolism, which represents knowledge, wealth, and strength among a few things (Mullatti) Toru wanted to acknowledge her Indian background for others to understand her love for her native country India. Although she had traveled and received her education abroad during her childhood, she still believes India to be her home. Indian tradition explains the lotus flower springs not from the earth but from the surface of the water and will remain pure and unblemished, not matter the impurity of the water. The purity of the lotus expresses the idea of supernatural birth and the appearance of the first created entity from the ancient waters of chaos, thus the lotus is observed as the medium of the Hindu creator Narayana and his second being God Brahma .Toru uses the idea of Greek and Roman goddesses to create a western understanding of Hinduism and its divine faith of the lotus.
The Lotus”, begins with a conflict between the rose and the lily flower. The goddess of love, Aphrodite, approached the flower goddess, Flora to create a flower who would undisputedly be the queenliest of all flowers. Both the lily and the rose, used their “bards of power” in their fight over the queenliest flower title. Bards is associated with Gaelic spiritual power traditions of England, Scotland and Ireland. Toru uses Greek and Roman mythology as support for her Hindu beliefs and to establish her stand. The rose is described as never reaching the level of the lily flower, because the lily has a strong willed demeanor.
In line 8 of the poem, we reach the climax where all the flower groups form cliques in a bitter conflict within the soul’s essence. The goddess Flora is given a task of creating a flower as “delicious as the rose” and “stately as the lily in her pride” Lines 9-14 of the poem, describes the solution to the problem of finding the queenliest flower of all. Toru has Flora create a flower that is both red as a rose and white as a lily. As a result, Flora creates a flower with the characteristics of a rose and a lily combined and created the beautiful lotus flower.