Author Question: Bishop varies the repeated lines that end with the word disaster. Lookonly at those lines: what do ... (Read 69 times)

crobinson2013 · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

Bishop varies the repeated lines that end with the word disaster. Lookonly at those lines: what do they suggest about the story being unfolded in the poem?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What things has the speaker lost? Put together a complete list in the ordershe reveals them. What does the list suggest about her experience with loss?

What will be an ideal response?

apple · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

From the blithe dismissal of line 3 (their loss is no disaster) to the poems concluding line, each of the four disaster lines is an exercise in denying the significance of loss. The poem moves steadily toward greater and greater losses, and the speaker seems determined, having begun with small and fairly trivial ones, to keep that trivializing perspective intact as she moves inexorably toward the loss that is truly agonizing to her. Each time around, the denial is weaker, more qualified: the speaker is using up her strength in fighting a hopeless battle to minimize the importance and the pain of what she knows, deep down, is indeed a disaster.

Answer to Question 2

She goes from trivial losslost door keysto lost time and opportunities, to losing beloved places, her mothers watch, and homes, to cities, realms, rivers, even a continent, culminating in the worst of all, the loss of love. The list suggests that loss has been the dominant note of the speakers life (and, in her view, of life in general): it has been constant and increasingly severe.