Time

The shortness of Yau’s poem “Russian Letter” dictates that the themes are only briefly mentioned or suggested. The subject given the most words is the idea that the past is stuck to the present. Clearly time passes, and yet the poem asserts that it is commonly believed that the past is always determining the present. Too, the poem points out that as much as people may struggle to escape the past, they have as much chance of doing so as flies stuck on gummy paper. The statement is fatalistic or pessimistic. The plot is already fixed in and by the past, and no matter what effort is exerted, the past dictates present circumstances, no matter how much one may struggle against that. This is a common way of seeing the time-bound human condition. It is a belief that strikes the narrator as extreme, one...