Essay on Loss In "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop

The word sadness immediately stands out in the title indicating opposite feelings normally associated with wedding dresses. To continue, the words “sad story” are repeated in lines 27 and 28 (Galvin). Galvin also repeats the word closet in line 4, 11, 14, 20, and 29; alone and forgotten in the darkness of a closet emphasizes the unique perspective of abandonment as opposed to a treasured item. From there, Galvin repetitively makes additional word choices that emphasize the sad, lonely, and abandoned feelings used wedding dresses experience. Galvin makes word choices such as starless, hopeless, darkness, hollow, dump, gone, and disappear. These words all connotate a dark, lonely, and abandoned feeling. Moreover, Galvin incorporates the words yellow, smoke, and flames. Packed away wedding dresses turn an ugly yellow while the lucky wedding dresses go up in smoke and flames; neither scenario are connected to the traditional view of a keepsake. To further the unique tone Galvin associates with wedding dresses, he integrates words such as weeping, longing, and waiting. The connotation of Galvin’s word choices elicit a deep yearning for a better outcome that will unfortunately never come for his abandoned wedding

The speaker in “Dismantling the House” by Stephen Dunn reflects on the demolition of this house with respect to the memories he has of it along with the loss he feels. By speaking directly to the reader he is actually talking himself through how his house will be demolished and what it means to himself. By discussing his house and the demolition of the symbol of a prized memory, the speaker reveals the impossibility of distancing oneself from something whose symbolism is so important; this is important because it reveals the complexities that arise from the loss acquired through the demolition of the house and the ways one tries to drive this loss towards something positive. The speaker utilizes the second person narrative to speak to himself

She lays helplessly, hopelessly tranced. What will remain of her in the coming hours is unknown, but one thing is for certain, I will remain by her side until she is an empty house, cold and unseeing. Though sorrow may fill my bones, all that I let show through is a sense of tranquil energy in lieu of the recent events. She mumbles and murmurs longing for the life long past. Embarrassment occupies her brain as she contemplates why and how her life has come to this. She reeks of stupidity and frailness when her life was nothing close to that. She fears that what we leave behind is more important that what we were. Is it though? Regardless of what she was or what she has become, I am here and I will always be here.

Bradstreet's attitude changes over the poem as she realizes that she should look at losing all of her things could be more than just a negative outcome.

When discussing loss knowing it comes in many forms can create an ubiquitous contemplation about the derivative of the characters loss. In many Dark Romantic and Gothic pieces loss can derive from a loved one, psychological torment, or even from an egotistical attribute. These attributes may seem customary to society, however these issues can take a great toll on a character. For example, in “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, he lost his wife to a lung disease which ultimately caused the narrator to obsess in a form of grief over Annabel Lee. Moreover, in the “Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen the protagonist and the antagonist essentially are the same person. Mrs. Dover while revisiting an old house she once lived in had created an entire situation that in her mind and to the reader seem real, once the reader continues the realization that Mrs. Dover created a situation all of her own due to psychological issues. Lastly, in “The Masque of

Similarly, the narrator of the poem cherishes: “The memory/Of/Those/Long/Delicious/Night/Swims/With/You;” (Walker 39-48). This memory has become broken because it is shared between two people, one of which is no longer present. It becomes a lock with two keys, one of which is missing. This excerpt gives insight that the narrator is suffering a loss related to a relationship of some kind, presumably romantic, as suggested by the use of the word delicious. Despite a loss of such close proximity, the narrator can take this memory and cherish it. She must come to the realization that this memory remains the same, despite a newly acquired absence. The memories of these two characters are not altered by the present, and can still be used to bring happiness through reflection and joyful revelations of the past. Offred and Walker’s narrator both use memories as motivators. For as long as somebody is thinking of someone, they are not truly gone.

In “Once Art by Elizabeth Bishop the speaker's attitude towards loss in lines 1-15 is unaffectionate while her attitude towards loss in lines 16-19 are more caring. She uses personification and symbolism to show how emotional it is to loose someone you love because people take their loved ones for granted. In lines 1-15 it can be seen that the speaker thinks that losing things isn’t a big deal from the first line, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” (Bishop 1). She’s saying that it’s easy to lose things, so it should be the norm.

In the third stanza there is heavy personification of the objects in her room and the moon. The room ‘it seemed, had missed her’ (10), by bringing inanimate objects to life the author draws parallels to the child missing her parent silently, silent like the items in her room. The moon has also begun to become characterized and has been framed as inconsiderate, ‘she pretended an interest in the bookcase’. This metaphor conveys how the child feels: overlooked, as if items in her room are more fascinating.

That known fact also leads into one of the major themes, memory and loss, and it is expressed throughout the entire poem. Another factor that displays the mood is that the beginning of the poem is so calm that it leaves the reader suspicious of something major about to occur. That’s when the narrator begins to hear tapping at his door.

In Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” the persona exhibits the idea that losing things becomes an unconscious practice for people, and, as a person grows older, the severity of what they are losing increases. This gives the reader much more practice in dealing with loss and its hardships, and, even though they don’t necessarily acknowledge their gradual grasp of this sense of coping, they use each experience to help them deal with the next with a sense of building up a ‘mental immune system.’ The persona suggests that the reader “masters” the art of losing because they have to learn to accept when something is gone, no matter how precious, and move on.

“Without thinking at all/I was my foolish aunt.”(48-49) , In “One Art” Elizabeth compares herself to her aunt. When her aunt cried out from the dentist office she felt her as a fullish women, but because she is reacting In a similar way to the magazine, she compares her aunts foolishness to her own. It was an unexpected realization that her reactions connected her to her aunt in a way she never felt before in her six years. “Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster/of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.”(48-49), The speaker wants to show us that theres nothing you can do but to accept you will lose things and to not let it get to you. In the poem her losses begin as insignificant objects that can be replaced but then she escalates her poem by significant losses like people, places, and homes. Its as if shes telling you to accept it, but she implicitly is showing us that shes not over her losses. She wants everyone to believe shes fine but we as the readers are not buying it.

Her diction is strong, confident, and unweathering. In the second stanza, the speaker introduces the first item that isn’t difficult to lose and reminds readers of the daily life hassles of finding lost keys. This is the first example of something in life that is easily lost for her. She further backs it up her original statement by saying that their intent is “to be lost” (3), saying that things are meant to be lost, no matter what happens. She instructs the audience to “lose” and “accept” (4), which suggests that she has gone through loss before and it would be better to accept losing things since it would not hurt as much. She then instructs the audience to “practice” (7) losing, so her heart will not be crushed when the audience is accustomed to losing. By line 6, the speaker gets frantic. Her words become careless and the words take a sort of rhythm. She says “losing farther, losing faster”. The alliteration in this line emphasizes how much and how fast she has lost that it is in a place so unreachable at this point. She then loses “places, and names, and where it was [she] meant / to travel” (8-9). She lost more important things, but they were bearable.

Both Russian formalists and New Critics would think the poem “ One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop is a success. It is a success for Russian formalists because the poem uses several different techniques to make the reader defamiliarized. The New Critics would think it is a success because of the meaning behind many of the techniques used in the poem and the reader seems be able to understand the intention of what the author was trying to get across in the poem.

A simile compares his experience of loss to µa tongue tip returning to ahole from which a tooth has been pulled¶, highly evocative in its sensory imagery. Thesensation of the pulled tooth is painful, a reflection of Thaw¶s absolute agony. Yet, thefeeling of returning to the hole left by the pulled tooth is almost instinctive ± he cannot helphis thoughts returning to Marjory. Thaw is puzzled, though: µhe was sure he had just seen agirl without special beauty or intelligence. He wondered why she had been all he wanted in awoman.¶ The juxtaposition of the µgirl¶ without special beauty to the µwoman¶ who had all hewanted illustrates the dramatic change in perception that has happened within Duncan ± the present Marjory is likened to his mother¶s corpse, symbolic of the loss Duncan has suffered,for now that there is no hope of his love returning, she is as good as µdead¶ to him. WhileMarjory¶s last words are painfully unforgettable in their polite disapproval ± ³This isn¶t your usual style of work, Duncan´, Duncan wishes he had said something µironic and memorable¶in order to leave an impression in her mind. However, his love for her is one-sided; Marjorydoes not feel the same affection towards Duncan as he does towards her, in the same way thatMarjory does not share the same loss of love that Duncan is subject to.The emotional trauma he suffers as a result of

The title of this villanelle “One Art” is an interesting concept, meaning that art is something one can perfect if a person practices enough, resembling a new style of painting or taking a high note in music. But Bishop’s art is different, no matter how much an individual will practice losing objects he or she will never be able to get over the loss of some things. Art in the title can be also interpreted as author’s poem, that writing helps her to grow over her losses or at least try to make it seem easier than it is.