Please interpret the following sentences?

Question

"Forrest, in twenty or thirty years, would you rather have made a few poems a part of your soul and part of the foundation of your being? Or would you rather not remember, and not have any need or desire to remember, the interpretation you gave to a poem no lines of which you could recall?"

Does it means "in the future of 20 or 30 years from now, Forrest should write poems" or "in the past of 20 or 30 years, Forrest should have written poems"?

I'm confused wheater [the time of writing a poem] is the future or the past from now. Thank you for helping me.

Answer 1

The person is saying that having the poems a part of someones soul is better than letting 20 or 30 years go by and not being able to recall anything memorable.

Answer 2

Future. In twenty or thirty years would you rather have made a few poems a part of your soul and part of the foundation of your being, Forrest? Just rearrange the sentence so that it still makes sense.

Answer 3

I think Forrest have not written a poem or will write a poem. Forrest is being asked to choose between two different scenarios about poem related situations.

Answer 4

The speaker is trying to persuade Forrest of the value of memorizing some poems, not necessarily writing poems. He is saying that if Forrest would memorize some poems, interpret them, and make them part of his soul and being, that will give him something to draw from for many years.

Answer 5

if you Forrest were to look back twenty years from say today would he have rather have lived a part of his life from a few lines of poems, and if he did not, then he would have no regrets because he would not remember missing that opportunity.

Answer 6

The sentence, as written, is AMBIGUOUS.

To qualify it the words, "in twenty or thirty years" should be expanded as follows:

1/ "in THE PAST twenty or thirty years"

2/ "in twenty or thirty years FROM NOW"

This would remove any confusion. If your question is as given by your tutor, then I would suggest you write an end of term report on him/her to include the hackneyed phrase, "Written work is ill-constructed, COULD DO BETTER"

Answer 7

It means Forrest's teacher thinks he should appreciate poems, intrepret them so that they mean something to him that he'll remember. Forrest, like most guys, would probably rather not bother, and therefore, not remember those poems. It really doesnt mean he should ever write poetry.

Answer 8

Hello Stephen,

errrrrm i think it means the questioner wants to know if Forest thinks that in the future they would have rather contributed to their own soul and evolution of passion with life forming poetry. Or weather in the future they would rather not be able to recall their passion of the past poetic moments.

The Choice the questioner has given is WILL YOU IN THE FUTURE HAVE RECOLLECTION OF LIFE PASSION or be devoid of desire in recollection of the creation of your soul.

Forrest must NOW think about what he MAY think in the future about the past.

DISCLAIMER: the above may be all crap mwha ha ha

Answer 9

it means:

2006 hey forrest.....
2036 hey, those poems

btween those yrs, forrest has ritten various poems. then wheater gives 2 options of how it could b, n asks which would b preferrable

Answer 10

It's the present, speculating about what he would be thinking in 20 or thirty years