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relations. Freud seems to offer returning to nature as a possible solution for men’s sexual freedom. I think Freud might believe that returning to nature by rejecting civilization could bring about sexual freedom, but that sexual freedom does not necessarily equal happiness.

Foucault completely defies Freud’s idea that sexuality is natural and that repression exists as anti-sexuality. He believes that everything is created from discourse; nothing is natural. And because nothing is natural, nothing is repressed. There is no such thing as a natural desire; if the desire exists, it is because it is already part of the discourse.

By focusing on repetitions of the words “nature” and “natural” and then seeing what goes with what, the writer creates a succinct and revealing comparison.

Doing The Method on a Poem

Here is an example of how one might do The Method on a piece of text—in this case, a student poem. We use a poem because it is compact and so allows us to illustrate efficiently how The Method works. See also the use of The Method on a visual image in Chapter 6, Making Interpretations Plausible.

Brooklyn Heights, 4:00 A.M.

Dana Ferrelli

sipping a warm forty oz.

Coors Light on a stoop in

Brooklyn Heights. I look

across the street, in the open window;

Blonde bobbing heads, the

smack of a jump rope, laughter

of my friends breaking

beer bottles. Putting out their

burning filters on the #5 of

a hopscotch court.

We reminisce of days when we were

Fat, pimple faced—

look how far we’ve come. But tomorrow

a little blonde girl will

pick up a Marlboro Light filter, just to play.

And I’ll buy another forty, because

that’s how I play now.

Reminiscing about how far I’ve come

Doing the Method on a Poem: Our Analysis

1. Words that repeat exactly: forty × 2, blonde × 2, how far we’ve (I’ve) come × 2, light × 2, reminisce, reminiscing × 2, filter, filters × 2, Brooklyn Heights × 2

2. Strands: jump rope, laughter, play, hopscotch (connecting logic: childhood games representing the carefree worldview of childhood) Coors Light, Marlboro Light filters, beer bottles (connecting logic: drugs, adult “games,” escapism?)

Smack, burning, breaking (violent actions and powerful emotion: burning)

3. Binary oppositions: how far we’ve come/how far I’ve come (a move from plural to singular, from a sense of group identity to isolation, from group values to a more individual consideration)

Blonde bobbing heads/little blonde girl

Burning/putting out

Coors Light, Marlboro Lights/jump rope, hopscotch

How far I’ve come (two meanings of far?, one positive, one not)

Heights/stoop

Present/past

4. Ranked repetitions, strands and binaries plus paragraph explaining the choice of one of these as central to understanding.

Most important repetitions: forty, how far we’ve/I’ve come

Most important strands: jump rope, laughter, play, hopscotch, Coors Light, Marlboro Light filters, beer bottles

Most important binaries: jump rope, laugher, play, hopscotch versus Coors Light, Marlboro Light filters, beer bottles; burning/putting out

Analysis (Healthy Paragraphs) The repetition of forty (forty ounce beer) is interesting. It signals a certain weariness—perhaps with a kind of pun on forty to suggest middle age and thus the speaker’s concern about moving toward being older in a way that seems stale and flat. The beer, after all, is warm—which is not the best state for a beer to be in, once opened, if it is to retain its taste and character. Forty ounces of beer might also suggest excess—“supersizing.”

The most important (or at least most interesting) binary opposition is burning versus putting out. This binary seems to be part of a more intense strand in the poem, one that runs counter to the weary prospect of moving on toward a perhaps lonely (“how far I’ve come”) middle-aged feeling. Burning goes with breaking and the smack of the jump rope, and even putting out (a strand), if we visualize putting out not just as fire extinguished