Daffodils, Poetry, and "Two-Facedness"

"I did not know what these flowers were, and so it was a mystery to me why I wanted to kill them." --Lucy, page 29

In Lucy, Lucy remembers having to memorize a poem about daffodils when she was young and claims that her recital of it to "parents, teachers, and [her] fellow pupils" marked "the height of [her] two-facedness" (18). Years later, while walking with Mariah and encountering real daffodils for the first time in her life, Lucy asks, "Mariah, do you realize that at ten years of age I had to learn by heart a long poem about some flowers I would not see in real life until I was nineteen?" (30). It seems that the reference to Lucy's "two-facedness" arises from her acknowlegement that, at age 10, she saw herself as a bit of a hypocrite, passionately reciting a poem about something she had neither encountered nor truly understood. Perhaps this is why, when she finally sees the objects that she so wonderfully (and obliviously) described during her poetry recital as a child, she "want[ed] to kill them" (29). The dandelions represent not only the resentment she had for the British colonization of her home and the corresponding oppression it made her feel, but they also remind her of the "two-facedness" she felt after reciting the poem as a child.

In a way, I can relate to Lucy's feelings about the daffodils and the feelings that her memory of the poetry recital invoke. When I was in junior high, I had to memorize and recite "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to my literature class (when Prof. Ambrose asked us in class on Thursday if we ever had to memorize a poem for school, I mistakenly said I had to recite a Robert Frost poem...I didn't realize my mistake until I "googled" some of the lines of the poem that I could remember...I apologize for the error). Like Lucy, when I had to recite the poem when I was young, I had no idea what the words of the poem really meant. I wasn't as worried about the meaning of what I was saying as I was about stumbling over words like "sinewy" and having to say the word "sexton" in front of my just-entering-puberty 7th grade peers. However, when I read the poem today after googling it (admittedly, the first time I have done so since that horrid 7th grade experience), I do feel like my recital of it in junior high (complete, like Lucy's, with "special emphasis in places where that was needed" [18]...I did get an 'A' after all) was a bit hypocritical. Now when I read the poem, I am reminded so much of my dad and how hard he has worked a blue-collar job all his life to provide for our family, something that I perhaps took a little for granted when I was younger. In a way, I am a little angry at my junior high self for not taking the time to grasp the meaning of the words I was saying...back then, all I cared about was getting a good grade.

Can you relate at all to the resentment that Lucy feels upon seeing the daffodils? Is there any specific place or object that makes you feel a certain way because it reminds you of something from your past? Do you think that Lucy's admission of being "two-faced" is accurate, or do you think that her recital of the poem without understanding its meaning was just an instance of childhood naivete?