Nabokov's father studied criminal law at St. Petersburg University, but then channeled his legal background into political activism. He was against capital punishment, pogroms, and many tsarist practices. Nabokov explains how his father's "antidespotic" writings have gotten him into trouble (175). In "Old World," Charles Simic celebrates a moment of contemplating eternity as he gazes on the ruins of an ancient temple in Sicily. The first line of the poem starts, "I believe in the soul," but "it hasn't made much difference." Later, the poet states that as dusk fell it was like "eternity eavesdropping on time." Motifs of soul and of timelessness permeate the poem. The imagery of ancient ruins allows Simic to examine the theme of eternity, and the potential timelessness of the human soul. Likewise, the poet engages imagery of the Sicilian shepherd way of life, which has largely remained untouched for centuries. The speaker discovers the ways that human beings can live...

In this case, the star of the show is a six-legged dog. The keeper of the dog does not treat the animal well. The dog sits in a corner most of the time, and most people do not pay much attention to it until the keeper throws a stick. Then the dog, motivated by its instinct to chase the stick, goes after it and its lame extra legs are "flapping behind." A drunk woman finds the dog comical and she "shrieks with laughter" while the drunk man she is with "kept kissing her neck." The dog looks back at the viewer, as if to illustrate how absurd human beings are: that human beings would take a creature's deformity and use it as a form of entertainment. Simic therefore questions the nature of human cruelty.