Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Hitchhikers by Diane Wakoski
Well, I have a feelings I will need a lot of help with this poem. It seems as though she is afraid of Hitchhikers because they make her feel like she has no choice, if she does not pick them up, she would feel guilty for not helping. BUt if she does it could cause possible danger to her. I think there is a deeper meaning here but Im not grasping it too well at this point. Definitely could use help.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yes, so far, you're looking a the literal surface of the miagery--stanzas 2 and 3 provide the personal/emotional foregrounding for the what the hitchhikers--it's really their heads that is the focus--and the berries "mean"; what role they play in the speaker's psychology. The imagery of the long stanzas 2 & 4 should also help explain why these berries, and the ash, can be at once beautiful and painful(stanza 6)--"ash" (the name of the tree) is suggestive as well. Note these various image patterns: the color red, the it's connection go flame/burning, the hitchhikers' sun-burned heads, the berries, ash, blood, the Phoenix (an allusion that suggests a psyhchological movement contrary to what the speaker is going through); the different senses of "burning"; the contrasting imagery of diamonds and gold (stanza 4); how all this leads to the imagery of the emotional sacrifice of the second-to-last stanza--how stanzas 2 & 4 ground all this, as I say--and the irony and humor of the last stanza--ie., the berries, the ash tree, the hitchhikers have a deeply psychological, rather than simply objective, existence for the speaker--someone getting in the car with her would certainly not know what he was getting into... also, see the exercise on Bb
ReplyDelete