From the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop that you have studied, select the poems that, in your opinion, best demonstrate her skilful use of language and imagery to confront life’s harsh realities.
Justify your selection by demonstrating Bishop’s skilful use of language and imagery to confront life’s harsh realities in the poems you have chosen.
I strongly agree that Elizabeth Bishop successfully uses both descriptive language and vivid imagery in her poems to skilfully confront life’s harsh realities. She uses engaging and relatable language to capture reader’s attention. Her use of imagery demonstrates how cruel and unforgiving life can be but often leaves us with a sense of hope during these dark times. In this essay I will demonstrate Bishop’s skilful use of language and imagery to confront life’s harsh realities of grief, loneliness and trauma using the poems ‘First Death in Nova Scotia’, ‘Sestina’ and ‘The Prodigal’.
In ‘First Death in Nova Scotia’, Bishop outlines her first memory of death in this poignant poem. She recalls the death of her baby cousin ‘Arthur’, who was only two months old when he died. This poem is told to us through the eyes and language of a child. The stark reality of childhood death and loss of innocence is expertly portrayed throughout such a moving poem.
The atmosphere is set in the first line of the poem with the repetition of “cold,cold”, giving a chilling and eerie feeling. Although Bishop may not be able to comprehend the significance of this event, she still senses the emotions of the adults around her. She paints an image of what she can see in the room where Arthur is laid out: “the chromographs” and “a stuffed loon”. Young Bishop believes that the loon is just being quiet and “hadn’t said a word” since he was shot, showing her naivety and lack of understanding for the concept of death. Bishop describes the loon’s breast as “deep and white, cold and caressable” displaying the harshness and coldness that the young girl associates with death.
In the third stanza, Bishop is lifted up by her mother to say good-bye to her “little cousin Arthur” and is given a lily of the valley to place in his hands. The lily of the valley symbolizes purity and serenity, once again reminding us of Arthur’s young life that was cut short. Bishop uses a heartbreaking metaphor to compare Arthur’s coffin to “a little frosted cake”, which lets the reader see the coffin from a child’s viewpoint. Rather than being shocked by this sight, her young imagination is thinking of an appealing image of a sweet cake.
Bishop goes on to describe Arthur himself in an innocent childlike way. She believes that he looks like a doll “that hadn’t been painted yet” giving us a touching picture of poor Arthur’s small, pale face. Her young, innocent mind fantasised the story of Jack Frost and believes that Jack Frost began to paint Arthur but dropped the brush “and left him white forever”. This striking image is a reminder of the harsh reality that Arthur will never get the chance to grow up and truly experience life.
In the final stanza, Bishop is trying to understand the possibilities of where Arthur has gone. Her explanation is that Arthur has been invited “to be the smallest page at court”. This is a happy and hopeful result for Arthur, but the young Bishop expresses concern and using a rhetorical question asks: “how could Arthur go, clutching his tiny lily, with his eyes shut up so tight and the roads deep in snow?”. She remains confused by the complexity of death and continues searching for a better answer. The language and imagery in this poem confronts us with the harsh reality of loss and the finality of death.
The next poem I believe demonstrates Bishop’s skilful use of language and also uses evocative imagery to confront life’s harsh realities is ‘Sestina’. This poem displays young Bishop’s longing for home, family and stability. It also describes the grief felt by both Bishop and her grandmother after Bishop’s father died and her mother was confined to an institution.
In the first stanza, Bishop sets the scene and tone of the poem using imagery. The line “September rain falls on the house”, instantly opens the poem with a negative, melancholic mood. Bishop uses carefully chosen language ending each line with one of six words: “house”, “grandmother”, “child”, “stove”, “almanac” and “tears”. An old grandmother is sitting in the kitchen with a child. It is clear that the grandmother cares deeply for the child. She is “laughing and talking to hide her tears”, we can see how desperate the grandmother is to protect the child from sadness by hiding her own grief.The grandmother believes that her tears and the rain were predicted by the almanac “but only known to a grandmother”. The child is oblivious to the devastation around her. She can’t see how the grandmother is struggling to protect her from the harsh realities by trying to give her a happy, loving childhood.
The child may be trying to understand her own feelings by personifying the inanimate objects in the house. She watches as “the teakettle’s small hard tears dance like mad”. Although the grandmother is making great efforts to protect the child from the sadness, it seems to have infected everything around them using the image of tears. Much like the grandmother’s laughter, the dancing balances out the sorrow with happiness and joy. The almanac begins to “hover half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother”, it is predicting the future for both the child and the grandmother. The grandmother “shivers”, hinting that the almanac has foretold that there is still darkness to come in their lives.
In the fifth stanza, the child poignantly expresses her emotions by drawing a picture of a “rigid house” and “a man with buttons like tears”. In my opinion, this shows how young Bishop longed for a stable home, not just a house. Her whole childhood was spent moving from house to house which would be very unsettling for a child of her age. The man may be a reference to Bishop searching for a father figure to look up to in life after the passing of her own father.
The grandmother continues to put on a happy appearance for the child’s sake and “sings to the marvellous stove”. This poem is bittersweet, the young child has endured so much in her short life but the grandmother strives to provide a loving and caring home for her even when she is hurting herself. It shows that although you may be surrounded by the people you love and feel affection for, loneliness is still able to creep into every aspect of life around you. Bishop’s precise language, especially the repetition of the word ‘tears’, and her creative imagery in this poem confronts us with the harsh reality of suffering and change through the perspective of a child.
The final poem of Elizabeth Bishop’s that I will discuss is ‘The Prodigal’. Bishop uses skilful language and imagery to confront life’s harsh realities of alcoholism and self imposed isolation in this poem. ‘The Prodigal’ is an allusion to the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son. It reflects on Bishop’s own struggles with alcoholism throughout her life and the shame and secrecy that comes with it.
The opening lines give us a clear image of the prodigal’s horrible living conditions in a pig sty. The personification of the smell in the line “The brown enormous odor he lived by was too close, with its breathing and thick hair, for him to judge” tells us that he has been living in these conditions for so long that he is now oblivious to the stench that is surrounding him. The speaker is so lonely and isolated that he looks for companionship in the pigs as “he leaned to scratch her head”. He is deprived of vital human touch and connection.
In the next lines, we learn of the man’s alcoholism: “But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts (he hid the pints behind a two-by-four)”. He may be drinking as a strategy to help himself cope with his past and to keep going in this filthy, depressing place. It is obvious that he is ashamed of his problem as he hides his drinks behind a plank of wood so that not even the pigs he is living with are able to judge him.
Bishop then changes the tone and gives a positive image with the line: “the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red”. This installs hope in the man and he thinks “he almost might endure his exile yet another year or more”. This warm use of colour suggests that even in the darkest moments in your life, there is still beauty and the possibility of second chances in this world.
In the second stanza, Bishop uses a simile comparing the animals to Noah’s Ark, cleverly describing them as “safe and companionable as in the Ark”. This once again displays how lonely the man is, all the animals have a partner but he is by himself. Not only is he alone in this barn, but he is also alone in life. He feels as if he has nobody to turn to and ask for help. The prodigal feels the “bat’s uncertain staggering flight”, demonstrating the control he has lost over his drinking problems. The harsh reality presented to us in this image is that we don’t always have control over the outcomes in our lives. Much like the blindness of the bats, the man can’t see what his future holds but he decides to keep going despite the difficult challenges he has faced.
At the end of the poem the prodigal eventually decides to swallow his pride and builds up the courage to finally “make his mind up to go home”. He realises he has made mistakes and it is time to return to his family and get help. This devastating poem uses eye-catching imagery and appealing language to face us with the harsh reality of how strong our own pride can be that we will go to great lengths rather than admitting that we were wrong and ask for forgiveness.
I believe these poems masterfully confront readers with the harsh realities of life using Bishop’s relatable language style and her symbolic imagery. Elizabeth Bishop is an extremely talented poet, she transforms her own personal trauma into experiences that we can all connect with in our own ways. She leaves readers with a sense of hope and purpose during tough times, by finding beauty even in the darkest of places.