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Essay on Analysis of "Filling Station" by Elizabeth Bishop

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Poets use many literary devices to extend the meaning of poetry they are writing. It not only extends the meaning, but also gives a better overall feeling of how the poem should be interpreted. One example of literary devices is the use of imagery. Imagery is a collective sense of images given throughout the meaning of the poem itself. A great poem that shows the use of imagery is the poem by Elizabeth Bishop, Filling Station.

The poem Filling Station is a poem about a person, possibly the writer, who visits a small town gas station. At this gas station she notices different aspects and describes how the look of the gas station gives its own personality. One example of this is when the poem states, ."..-this little filling station, …show more content…

Another example of Elizabeth Bishop using imagery to let the reader understand the meaning is when the writer writes, "Father wears a dirty oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms, and several quick and saucy and greasy sons assist him (it's a family filling station), all quite thoroughly dirty." The writer describes the stereotypical filling station worker, who in this case is a father, in a family establishment. When the writer writes "Father wears a dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms..." gives an image of when people are done working out. Their shirts are dark and soaked with sweat. However, in this situation, it is dark and more soaked with oil rather then sweat stains all over the clothes. Later she states that his sons come out to help. The writer makes another image of kids who are young and at the stage of following every move the father does.

Another imaginative picture given to the reader is when the Elizabeth Bishop states, "Do they live in the station? It has a cement porch behind the pumps, and on it a set of crushed and grease-impregnated wickerwork; on the wicker sofa a dirty dog, quite comfy." This gives the reader a sense that the father and kids use the station for lounging and maybe for living. Since the house has dirty wickerwork sofa, and a dirty dog makes it seem like the family is too busy and does not have time to tend to the house chores. The she also states, "Some comic books

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