Ethics

                                                                                                        Linda Pastan, USA (1932 - )
Summary in English

The poem "Ethics" is Linda Pastan, influential American poetess. This poem represents the dilemma between art and life. It tells the story about the youth to old age. According to her, life, art, painting and nature are almost one. In addition, art is like the life itself.
The speaker at the very beginning of the poem shares her past experience about ethical question asked by her class teacher that brought complexity and dilemma to her. The question was "if there was a fire in a museum, which would you save, a Rembrandt painting or an old woman who hadn't many years left anyhow?' This question makes speaker long time to think in different occasions and places. She along with her classmates used to choose the Rembrandt painting for one year and the old woman in another year, and the school teacher reported the speaker that she wanted to be far away from her responsibility.
In fact, the speaker could not understand what ethics means when she was child. However, the poetess stands in the real museum in front of the real Rembrandt and her as the old woman herself after many years. Then, she comes to know that art is related to life and vice-versa. Being an artist, the speaker emphasizes both art and life. Now she comes with the surprising answer that woman, painting and the season are almost one and all beyond saving children. It means life and art is the One, where one remains incomplete in the absence of another. Rather both art and life are almost equal.