Beyond the Dark Tower: Childe Roland's Painful Memory Summary

I did a presentation on the article "Beyond the Dark Tower: Childe Roland's Painful Memory" by John King McComb. Throughout the article McComb is analyzing the memory relapses that take place in the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" poem by Browning. The article questions the speaker of the poem; Childe Roland since Roland may have died in the end. How accurate can Roland tell his own story? According to Harold Bloom, "How far can Roland be trusted in recounting his own catastrophe?"

Browning has a common theme through many of his poems involving characters being unable to forget their past. Some examples of these other poems by Browning where the main character struggles with escaping their past are “Pauline,” “Cenci,” and “A Bean Stripe: Also Apple Eating.” These characters in these poems often times try to suppress their memory by the act of will, through vigorous activity, or change in place. In most cases memory cannot be escaped at all. Memories almost always intrude upon the characters present.

Throughout the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” Roland keeps reliving the past, either voluntarily or non-voluntarily. The first appearance of Roland’s past is when Roland is trying to decide whether or not to take the cripple’s direction to the Dark Tower. This brings Roland to voluntarily think about his past. The second appearance of his past Roland is trying to remember happy memories but he involuntarily remembers the past miseries that were the end results of happy memories. The third appearance of Roland’s memories is when Roland arrives at the Dark Tower; he begins to hear all the names from his past repeatedly in his ears. He suddenly then begins to see all his friends and their failures on the hills around him. The fourth appearance of Roland’s past is the actual whole poem itself. The poem is all in past tense, which makes the reader aware that Roland, is speaking some point after the final event of the poem.

Throughout the poem Roland’s past memories become more vivid. The more Roland tries to put an end to his past, the stronger and more spontaneous the past returns. The memories begin to worsen as the poem goes on.

The whole article is McComb’s viewpoint of the poem and Roland’s character in the poem. McComb’s pretty much only sees things from his point of you and just assumes he is right. One of the major topics McCombs brought up about the poem is what the true object of Roland’s quest actually was. Roland has spent long years on a quest that readers are never told straight forward what the quest actually is. In the beginning of the poem Roland asks the cripple to point out the way to the Dark Tower. According to McCombs, “Some critics have misread the poem by assuming that the Dark Tower is the original object of the quest. This assumption puts them in the awkward position of having to explain how, of the cripple lies, he nevertheless points the true way.” McCombs argues that the object of the quest is not as simple as readers and critics appear to make it seem.

Browning chooses to do a lot of poems about characters reflecting and fearing their past. Any moment when Roland seems to remember happy moments they always turn to unhappy ones. This is the main point and thing McCombs touches on in his article: Roland’s inability to forget his past and live in the moment.

McComb, John King. "Beyond the Dark Tower: Childe Roland's Painful Memories." JSTOR. The John Hopkins University Press, 1975. Web. 16 Sept. 2013.