Tone is established by very even rhythm – each image is given

In Worcester, Massachusetts, it’s own line, the iambic trimeter (the rhythm) is very regular –
I went with Aunt Consuelo suggests a calmness, even boredom for the speaker.
to keep her dentist's Repetition: The speaker returns to the image she gave us at the beginning. This
appointment time though, it reads much different. Due to her sudden realisation what she
Lack of emotive language in these lines helps
of thedevelop the calm
and sat and waited for her sees becomes a really nice representation lack of individuality that comes
tone – the line lack any emotive adjectives
in the adult world. What she sees is just an accumulation ofthat suggest any kind that have no
figures
in the dentist's waiting room.
of attitude
immediate on behalf of the speaker.
individuality.
It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room
was full of grown-up people, Individuals are only described by what they wear. Again
arctics and overcoats, This could almost be seen as a theme statement of the poem – that after coming
to emphasis
this kind is
of on objective
realization description,
your world is which
never helps
the to
same. establish
The moment of
lamps and magazines. the naivety and innocence ofway
the young speaker.
My aunt was inside epiphany impacts your whole of seeing the world forever.
what seemed like a long time
and while I waited and read The volcano is an example of vertical imagery. It is simply a description, but
the National Geographic can be considered as a metaphor as it reflects the violent explosion of
(I could read) and carefully knowledge that occurs within the young speaker.
studied the photographs: The rhetorical questions used in this section are really interesting because not
the inside of a volcano, only do they express the speaker trying to figure out how her identity came to be
black, and full of ashes; what it is, it also demands that the reader consider their thoughts on the issue.
then it was spilling over The image of the “Long Pig” again suggests her innocence. It also
in rivulets of fire. This section the
foreshadows is really important
weight because the questions
of the understanding to come –ask thethe really
adult difficult
world is
Osa and Martin Johnson questions
full of dark that this
knowledge poemthatexplores.
we are How is
protected our identity
from as constructed?
children. How in
control are we of our identity? And by using rhetorical questions it helps us
dressed in riding breeches,
insert the reader into the poem as well.
laced boots, and pith helmets. Images of women who are physically marked because they are women. Their
A dead man slung on a pole identity is shaped simply because they are women – this links nicely to Bishop’s
"Long Pig," the caption said. idea that our identity is often determined by social expectations and ‘rules’
Babies with pointed heads
wound round and round with string;
black, naked women with The women are seen as objects – their individuality is stripped of them.
necks A last vertical image for us. Once more Bishop expresses the overwhelming
wound round and round with natureShort,
of epiphany through thethat
sharp statements, image of a wave
suggests – this
a need is effective
to see. because
She seems to it
wire suggests needdrowning,
to mark this which is beingknow
moment: overwhelmed by water.
which magazine thisThe use of thehas
experience colour
like the necks of light bulbs. black come
and the repetition
from, know theof ‘another’ further
date on which strengthens
this has occurred.the overwhelming
These are nice,
Their breasts were horrifying. effect clear
of thismarkers
image. of the external world that she is about to leave.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop.
And then I looked at the cover: The key word here is ‘inside’. – this is a pun being used as it could suggest both Aunt
the yellow margins, the date. Consuelo’s physical voice or an internal voice within the speaker. This starts to link the
Suddenly, from inside, speaker to her aunt and suggests that her identity isn’t as individual as she though.
came an oh! of pain
--Aunt Consuelo's voice--
not very loud or long. Here she is discovering that is identical with her aunt – she is herself, but
I wasn't at all surprised; also her aunt. This is the idea that our identity is partly shaped by our
even then I knew she was families and is therefore partly out of our control.
a foolish, timid woman.
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't. What took me All of a sudden our speaker is falling outside the normal boundaries of her
completely by surprise identity even as she is desperately trying to fix the date of the magazine in
was that it was me: her head. An internal realisation is going on that is pulling the speaker out of
my voice, in my mouth. her normal reality but she is resisting being pulled out by it. The rhythm
Without thinking at all here suggests agitation and confusion because it is no longer regular.
I was my foolish aunt,
I--we--were falling, falling, Bishop focuses again on objective images – descriptions of the real world –
our eyes glued to the cover to indicate the needs/desires of the speaker to hold on to things she
of the National Geographic, understands. This suggests that she is feeling overwhelmed by her epiphany.
February, 1918.
Another metaphor is being employed here – another vertical image. This
I said to myself: three days time it is about falling. This helps to express the negative impact of new
and you'll be seven years old. knowledge – the image is an effective reflection of panic.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off The fundamental struggle is laid out by the speaker. She is both an ‘I’, an individual
the round, turning world. who has her own identity, but also an Elizabeth - the person that other people know,
into cold, blue-black space. judge, read, etc. And also ‘one of them’ - a female, a human being - someone who is
forced to fit into certain social categories.
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't look any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.

Why should I be my aunt,

or me, or anyone?
What similarities
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat, or even
the National Geographic
and those awful hanging breasts
held us all together
or made us all just one?
How I didn't know any
word for it how "unlikely". . .
How had I come to be here,
like them, and overhear
a cry of pain that could have
got loud and worse but hadn't?

The waiting room was bright

and too hot. It was sliding
beneath a big black wave,
another, and another.

Then I was back in it.

The War was on. Outside,
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
The use of ‘then’ indicates a shift or turn to a different time. She’s suddenly
were night and slush and cold,
returns to the external world where it’s winter and gets dark and where
and it was still the fifth
there is a war happening and where the date is still the same. So, in many
of February, 1918. 
ways, nothing has changed. But, for the speaker, everything has changed. She
has lost herself but also remade herself. The repetition in the structure helps
to remind us of where the speaker started and where she has arrived at by
the end.