September
10
Elizabeth Bishop “Sestina” – Guided Analysis
Please respond to both questions in the comments below this post. You may agree/disagree with your peers on their point of view but you must substantiate any of your claims with careful and relevant quotation.
a) What do you understand of the situation and state of mind of the poetic voice?
b) How do details and other literary techniques convey the situation and feelings of the speaker?
a) I believe that the narrator of the poem ( the voice ) sounds dreary and sad. I am guessing this from the evident elemental empathy evident in the poem via the rainfall quotes in the poem ” the rain beats on the roof of the house”.
b)I believe the that the speaker (as I mentioned in the previous comment as well) conveys feelings of sadness. my reasoning for this is because the poem shows use of free verse, (im not saying all free verse poems are depressing)
in this case to strengthen the feeling of pressure and sadness. not to mention that many of the words at the end tend to be the same throughout most of the stanza which, in my opinion conveys that the speaker is weighed down by these things e.g the house, child etc
From the poem Sestina, we can quickly see that not all is as it should be. In the first stanza, we see the grandmother “laughing and talking to hide her tears.” The word tears is used once in every stanza, constantly reminding us that something is wrong.
The detail that best helps us understand what is wrong in the poem is when the child draws a picture. The child draws a house, and then “puts in a man with buttons like tears.” By drawing a house, the child seems to be drawing their family. And yet where is their mother?
a) The persona of Sestina seems to be quite sad. The first evidence of this comes from the very first line; “September rain falls on the house”. The month of September represents the beginning of Autumn, which is also the end of Summer, which is itself associated with happiness. It is as if the persona’s happiness had just ended, and that something is wrong. There is also the repetition throughout the poem of the word “tears”, which (obviously) convey sadness.
b) In Sestina, we can always find the same 6 words on 6 of the stanzas: house, child, grandmother, tears, almanac, stove. This suggests that the persona thinks that life is very repetitive. It’s always the same routine, over and over again. The last stanza, only having 3 words and 3 lines instead of 6, represents for the persona the rarity of variations in daily life, which makes the persona sad. Also, “the little moons fall down like tears” represent to the persona the passage of time (the moons falling down representing the days and nights), and how quickly it passes (“fall” usually suggests high speed), even with the constant repeat of the daily routine, and what the persona has to go through in life.
a) I think that the author could have been going through a tough time, so she is sad and quite depressed as she repeats regularly the word ‘tears’ and there’s a repetition of ‘rain’ in stanza’s 1, 2 and 3.
I agree with what Alexis wrote about the first line in the first stanza, ‘September rain falls on the house’, September shows the end of summer so the change of seasons is quite sad.
b) ‘September rain falls on the house’ is used as pathetic fallacy, so the weather is linked to the tone and the mood of the poem (Not quite sure of how to make clear what I mean). In my opinion the mood of the poem gets better while reading it, like the first 3 stanzas are really sad, but after the third stanza the word ‘rain’ disappears and this could show that the author is not that sad anymore by the end of the poem as in the last stanzas there are happy words as ‘house’, ‘draws’, ‘sings’, ‘marvelous’ and ‘flower’. This obviously doesn’t mean the tone becomes happy.
I think that the poem’s structure named Sestina (like the poem), could represent the rain (or tears) as the lines of the first stanza are each linked to the last line of the following stanzas, (yeah this may me a bit exagerated and I probably didn’t explain myself correctly, but it’s just a thought).
The tone of the poem is sad and helpless. this is shown by the structure of the poem as it’s written in free verse. the persona is going through tough time. the poetic voice seems lost and not quite settling in a normal state.
in a normal Sestina, there are six stanzas. but in this poem, there are seven which shows that the poetic voice has a different life than other typical families.the repetition of the words house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac and tears have a strong emphasis.the word “tears” represent the constant sad atmosphere the poet is living in. we have a pathetic fallacy when we are told that the ” rain falls on the house”. this might represent the sadness that occupies this house or family.many objects are personified to show the emotions of the persona. we find a transferred epithet in ” the little moons fall like tears”. the moons are actually in the almanac, but the tears fall from the grandmother’s eyes.
The very first line of the poem, which is, “September rain falls on the house” portrays a gloomy atmosphere. The fact that it is September shows the transition from summer to autumn and the coming of winter which represents death and gloom. This shows that the poet is unhappy and immediately sets a somber and solemn atmosphere. Throughout the rest of the poem, it is easy to tell that the poet is reminiscing a sad event, and is in a depressed and unhappy state of mind, as she repeats certain words such as ‘tears’ almost in every stanza.
The poet’s emotions are further portrayed by the poetic and literary techniques she uses throughout the poem. First of all, Elizabeth Bishop has named the poem ‘Sestina’, after the form of the poem. However the poem is not a traditional sestina, which reflects how the family mentioned in the poem is not a traditional family, as the little girl is missing either one or both parents. She also uses free verses to give the poem a serious undertone.
I also noticed that the poet uses pathetic fallacy to reflect her emotions in the gloomy weather. The repetition of words such as “tears”, “grandmother”, “child”, “almanac” and “house” emphasize the fact that something is not right in the lives of the characters in the poem.
Sidenote: This is not a formal exam style answer. It took me finishing writing this to realize it. But whatever this is a blog, get over it. In the exam I promise not to make fun of the poet’s poor choices.
a) What do you understand of the situation and state of mind of the poetic voice?
The poetic voice is outside the ongoing scene of the poem and gives the mood that we are looking into a window in their home. There is some kind of awkwardness and isolation between the child and the grandmother, Because even though they are ‘reading jokes and laughing together’ the grandmother is hiding her tears and the child is not seeing her true emotions and the almanac is foretelling something ‘only known to the grandmother’. Also, it is almost like they are in separate worlds as the child is distracted by/daydreaming about the ‘small dark tears dance like mad on the hot black stove’ while the grandmother is tiding up. Small factual direct phrases said by the grandmother gives it an awkward vibe as if she is attempting to break the ice or start a conversation. “She says she thinks the house feels chilly” or “It’s time for tea now”.
b) How do details and other literary techniques convey the situation and feelings of the speaker?
I absolutely love what Bishop has done with the lunar theme. It ties in so well with the seasons changing.”Her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house”. Although the title is ridiculous and lazy and unoriginal (Just for the record, I plan on naming my first book ‘Novel’ and renaming my dog ‘Puppy’, also feel free to refer to me as ‘Person’) the actual idea of a Sestina is perfect for this poem. Bishop is clever, the references to the house, tears, almanac, grandmother, child and stove took us a while to decode but the different meanings were such a good idea.
LOL Elisa I enjoyed your rant regarding Bishop’s unimaginative choice of title. No need to apologise, this is a free space 🙂