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UNIT 3 ANSWERS To Poem
UNIT 3 ANSWERS To Poem
Unit 3 Answers
2. Prose summary
COMMENTS
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Unit 3 Answers
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bishop/waiting.ht
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5. This image of "A dead man slung on a pole –'Long pig,' the
caption said", certainly unpleasant and disturbing, refers
to the name, the euphemism, some tribes in the Marquesas
Islands, Papua New Guinea and other locations in Polynesia
used to call dead human bodies that were destined to be
eaten in cannibal rituals. 1 It precedes the image of the
1
In the context of 1918 and much of the first half of the 20th century,
following a negative tradition that began when Europeans established first
contacts with Caribbean and American cultures in the late 15th and 16th
centuries, the attention dedicated to those rituals by anthropological
studies and magazines such as, possibly, The National Geographic reflected a
discourse that was used ideologically to emphasize the difference and
Otherness, i.e. the inferiority and savage nature, of those tribes as
compared to the assumed civilization and cultural superiority of West (these
theoretical concepts is studied in Unit 5). The real practice of ritual
cannibalism of those peoples in New Guinea and Polynesia, and, as it has
recently been argued in recent years, also the early white peoples of Europe
remains the object of heated anthropological debate. In the context of
Bishop's poem, this reference points to the almost seven-year-old girl
"discovering" the Otherness of other human groups as compared with Western
culture, but at the same time their common humanity, her identification with
them, especially women, and the confusion it creates in her. The age of the
speaker, three days short of seven years is significant because at that age
children become more aware of their own bodies, the similarities and
differences with those of other children and those of adults. It is
questionable that a seven-year-old would understand the meaning of "Long
pig", but the poem suggests that the text of the magazine explains what it is
and the speaker says that she read the text, certainly, fear and disgust
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Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa (CTLLI)
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“babies with pointed heads” (l. 26) and the “black, naked
women with necks/wound round and round with wire” (ll. 28-
29), which are practices related to different standards of
beauty belonging to other cultures that may be shocking
form a Western point of view. The image of the man and the
also disturbing detail of the women’s necks, constricted by
wire, may well arouse strong feelings in the young speaker:
disgust, revulsion, fear and terror for the former (note
that the man is dead and it seems that according to the
magazine he is going to be eaten!) and more fear,
revulsion, and terror related to the latter (the bound
necks suggest restriction of movement, pain, torture…). The
image emphasizes the impression, the strangeness that other
human groups and their customs cause on the seven-year-old,
her identification with them as humans, but also her
feeling her own difference from them.
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Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa (CTLLI)
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But notice that the first verse only reads "inside", not
"inside the dentist's room". Then the text clearly says it
was "–Aunt Consuelo's voice–". This is followed by the
speaker's reflection about her Aunt: "I wasn't at all
surprised; / even then I knew she was / a foolish, timid
woman. / I might have been embarrassed, / but wasn't […]".
This seems to confirm our suppositions that the "oh!" was
her aunt's cry of pain, and it is clearly devised to work
like that. However, what follows changes the whole
interpretation (pay extra careful attention to the
underlined words): "[…] What took me / completely
by surprise / was that it was me: / my voice, in my mouth."
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Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa (CTLLI)
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The speaker now says that it was herself who uttered
the exclamation of pain. It is the speaker who exclaims in
pain at seeing the National Geographic pictures. So the
exclamation came from inside her. Actually, this makes us
hesitate and wonder if we have read the text correctly or
wrongly, and, certainly, the natural reaction is to go back
to "Suddenly, from inside". When this line is re-read, the
textual strategy becomes clear: there is no indication that
the "oh!" sounds inside the dentist's room. The text is
devised to provoke the same kind of confusion and surprise
in the reader's as the one the speaker felt at that moment
when she heard herself exclaim "oh!" in a voice that was
very similar, if not identical, to that of her aunt
Consuelo (this is not far-fetched at all for we all have
similar voices to our parents, brothers, sisters, and close
relatives, especially those that belong to our same sex; it
is part of being genetically related). She is surprised to
recognize her aunt's voice but realizing simultaneously
that it is actually her own voice sounding very much like
her aunt's. This is what prompts the speaker's
identification with her aunt in the following six lines and
then the really uncomfortable, anxious identification with
other women. The speaker is outside the dentist's room
within which we are led to think that Aunt Consuelo emits
her cry of pain. There is an outside / inside movement
characteristic of the entire poem that gives expression to
the young speaker’s attempts to understand her growing
sense of who she is in relation to her surroundings and the
outer world in general – Worcester, the dentist’s waiting
room, grown-up people, people in other parts of the world,
Aunt Consuelo, the “round, turning world”… But at this very
moment, the distinction outside / inside, her aunt /
herself collapses and the speaker becomes one with her aunt
in a very intense experience, an epiphany, that has a
shocking effect on her: this powerful identification with
her aunt and with other women, but also the powerful
rejection of this identification and the imperious need of
being different from them (even the rejection of being a
mother, as the traditional role of women). These
feelings are so intense that she actually feels anxiety,
even panic and she passes out and loses consciousness
briefly for a while as the text indicates later in lines
90-93 (the four lines before the final group of five
verses that close the poem), and line 94. This
overpowering experience together with the lights and the
heat in the waiting room get to her and she blacks out for
a matter of seconds ("It was sliding
/ beneath a big black wave, / another, and another" (ll.
91-93), and then she regains consciousness: "Then I was
back in it" (l. 94).
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