The literary work is written in an old-fashioned manner consisting of blank-verse sections of varying lengths interpreted to claim that true order must be discovered within natural surroundings rather than forced on it although orders are different from the unpretentious natural tempos. Wallace developed it as an argument between two voices; the authoritative voice that seeks out to reassure the female character that all life’s satisfaction is found in the world and the timid, questioning voice of the woman whose appreciation of her surrounding is interrupted by the realization of death. The first section of the poem expresses a woman enjoying oranges and coffee in a sunny chair and goes into a trance remembering her church which she was not attending at the moment hence allowing guilt and fear to interject her liking. The theme of happiness is evident when the woman is relaxed and taking breakfast but realizes that Sunday morning does not last forever following the ‘encroachment of that old catastrophe”. The author provides a vivid description of the surrounding with phrases such as “the green freedom of a cockatoo.” The second section is of the authoritative voice that asks why the woman should die to get to enjoy heaven while the world offers compensation of the same (Stevens, 53). The suggestion here is that the woman should be one with nature and not try to redefine herself as something supernatural. The author asked ‘What is divinity if it can come?” and states that “divinity must live within herself.”
The third section describes the history of divinity by mentioning that the Jove originated from the partly human Jesus to become a full human god turning the earth into paradise using words such as ‘inhuman birth”. The fourth section turns our attention back to the woman who doesn’t fully accept the argument upon the realization that the paradise offered is not permanent when she asks “where, then is paradise” (Stevens, 54). Although reassured by the authoritative voice that there is permanence in the human rather than individual, her defense in section five that she desires individual continuity “The need of some imperishable bliss” is contradicted by the voice offering consolation that “death is the mother of beauty”. Section six gives an assumption of heaven in which a ripe never falls citing that such a place would be boring and unbeautiful. The argument in section seven is rather conclusive as it offers an alternative to Christianity by men praising the sun which is recognition of man’s participation in nature and the woman accepts it (Stevens, 55). The merging of the two voices proclaims that humans are not different from casual flocks of pigeons which can be interpreted to imply self-definition that is natural rather than covered up. The use of a woman to express the poet’s objections to Christianity presents the motif of searching for a sustain fiction. The description of nature suggests split-up and loneliness. The woman questioning her faith offers a sense of vulnerability of all nature. Simple identification of the cycles in the natural surrounding does not offer a form of transcendence while paganism does. The theme of religion from throughout the poem implies an aspect of sacrifice of the things we enjoy for example of the woman’s breakfast but this idea is dismissed. The poet acknowledges the pagan’s perspective and in the end, the woman separates from the supernatural and embraces the happening of nature. The theme of choices on what to believe in is evident when the two arguments finally merge.
Work cited
Stevens, Wallace. Collected Poetry and Prose. New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States, 1997. Print.
