Pollen - LaviniaGreenlaw


A literary appreciation of Pollen ( LaviniaGreenlaw )
by Supri

Introduction
It is interesting when reading this short story.  From the title we know this literary works heavily in scientific topic, but  don’t make an early conclusion. lets investigate what is actually the author want to say through this short story . is there any reason why the author choose the pollen as the title?  is there any relationship between this story and the social phenomenon at that time ?
Some of the points above may represent the questions of the readers while they read this short story. Pollen is one of the works of LaviniaGreenlaw .Greenlaw was born in London into a family of doctors and scientists. She began her working life in publishing and arts administration before he become   a freelance artist, critic and radio broadcaster. She lives in London and currently works as professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia. It  makes sense now why she choose a scientific term to be the title of her story, but does  the story tell about pollen ? or is the pollen just a symbol of something ? it’s better if we go to the story tells about .

Investigation
This short story tells about two persons who had a special relationship in the past and  after for  long  time they lost each other , now they have an opportunity to communicate each other through a letter. Because its form is in a letter, so it provides a kind of styles of short story writing. Back to the story, the characters are Zed and Laura.Through the letter, Laura wants to ask many things which explain all of the unexplained things  happened in their past. It is showed by the sentences made by Laura is more than Zed. Every time Laura asks many things, Zed gives a short answer even it doesn’t have any relation with the questions .now they have their own life with their couple, but why zed appears after lost for long time.

In their conversation (of course through the letter) seems that Zed try to know whether Laura still has feeling on him or not by asking her to have a luch together . At the first time, Laura refuses Zed’s invitation, but at the end , Zed didn’t come after she Agreed. It shows that actually he still loves her, but in the condition right now, it is impolite when a maried man hang out together with a woman who doesn’t have any bussiness with him . in his deepest heart , Zed want to make sure how Laura looks like now . it shows in the last letter of Zed . Zed says that he was late, but he saw her and didn’t to try stop her . He just looked at her carefully and admire to her beauty . It can be said that he plays Laura’s heart . so this is the caracter of Zed . He easy makes fun with a woman and so easy leaves them with the broken heart. This caracter of Zed maybe have similarities with the pollen . They easilyfertilizea lot ofstigma and switching fromoneto another . but why the Author choose this of topic which is an affair of the maried man and the maried woman.
  I think the author wants to show us about what happends in society at that time . What happens is a change in the paradigm of the people about love.  In the previous age of literature , lets say some romantic novel  such as Romeo and Juliet , Scarlet letter ,etc. They view love as a very precious thing , even a person is willing to die for it. In this short story prove that this view is no longer in that way . eventhough Laura and Zed are still in love each other, Zed hold his desire to meet Laura . He doesn’t want to break the rule .The second change is that long time ago maybe a men is faithful and now are broken by Zed’s caracter which is symbolized by Pollen.   
It can be said that the world is dynamic and always changed as time passed . As well as the phenomena in the real society . this short story tells about the real life , about love and the rule in the society . The feeling is defeated by the logic . The love is defeated by the rule.
This is the world now , we have to open minded to this kind of phenomenon . so we can face the world  and not run over by the time .
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