On “Nantucket”

In “Nantucket” , the objects in the room are used to capture the cleanliness. As a

Modernist poet, Williams avoids being symbolism. Instead of being abstract, he captures invisible

matters in concretes which makes his poem becomes simple, plain, and exact. In this poem, the

author talks about the hotel room in Nantucket. He mentions few objects that illustrate

cleanliness. Williams states “Flowers through the window/ lavender and yellow/ changed by white

curtains”(1-3). The white color of the curtain, which makes the color of the flower become paler

shows that, the curtain is very white. In addition, as white is color that means cleanliness, it

emphasizes that the curtain is very clean. Similarly, Wiliams capture cleanliness through a glass

pitcher and the tumbler as written “a glass pitcher, the tumbler/ turned down,…”(7-8). Williams

states that the glass pitcher and the tumbler are turned down to emphasize that the containers

are really clean as these objects are always turned down in the hotel when the guesses are first

entering the room in order to show that they are unused. Therefore, the unused glass pitcher and

the tumbler are said to be clean. Overall, as cleanliness is invisible, Williams used concrete

objects to capture it in a sensible way.