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Analysis Of Singapore By Mary Oliver

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Mary Oliver's "Singapore."
The poem, “Singapore”, by Mary Oliver advocates for respect for all types work. It is set in a restroom at an international airport in Singapore. The poem has two characters, who are the poet and a female toilet cleaner. The poem starts with the poet visiting a restroom at the international airport. The poet finds a native woman kneeling and cleaning the toilet that has human excreta. The poet is disgusted by this scenario. On the other hand, the toilet cleaner is embarrassed that the poet has found her doing this “undignified” work. The poet uses this scene to pass a message that all types work deserve respect. She uses imagery in her lines to express this message, which is discussed below.
In the first stanza of the poem, the second line is an example of imagery. The poet writes, “a darkness was ripped from my eyes” (Oliver 2). For centuries, artists have used “darkness” to portray the image of ignorance or lack of knowledge. A perfect example is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where darkness depicts lack of knowledge. Similarly, in this poem, Darkness portrays the image of ignorance. Therefore, the line, “a darkness was ripped from my eyes” (Oliver 2), means that ignorance was cut from the poet's mind. She learnt a new thing that she did not know before this encounter. The poet discovered that she should not discriminate people based on their work or profession.
In the second stanza, the poet writes, “Disgust argued in my stomach, / And I felt in my pocket, for my ticket” (Oliver 5-6). The line “disgust argued in my stomach” indicates feeling the poet had upon seeing the cleaner cleaning the toilet. It implies the encounter was torrid such that the poet felt nauseated. Additionally, the following line “And I felt in my pocket, for my ticket” (Oliver 6) further stresses this feeling of disgust and pity. This encounter is the only one in Singapore that made the poet feel her tickets in her pockets. It implies that the encounter made the poet feel lucky for not living in Singapore where people had to clean toilets with human excreta.
In the third stanza, a lot of imagery is used. The significant ones are present in the seventh and eleventh lines. In the first line, the poet writes, "A

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