Jane Kenyon’s The Blue Bowl Essay -- Poems Poetry Analysis

Kenyons criticism of burial and the mourning process and the manner in which it fails to provide a sense of check for those who have wooly a loved one is the main underlying theme in The gruesome Bowl. Through her vivid description of both the native setting and the grief-stricken frantic overtone surrounding the burial of a familys ho mathematical function pet and the events that follow in the time after the guy rope is put to rest, Kenyon is able to invoke an emotional response from the indorser that mirrors that of the poems actual characters. Her careful use of diction and the poems presentation through a initiative-person perspective, enables Kenyon to place the reader in the context of the poem, thus making the reader a participant rather than a mere observer. By combining these two literary techniques, Kenyon present a compelling origin with evidence supporting her critique of burial and the mourning process.Kenyons choice of a first person perspective serves as o ne of two main techniques she uses in developing the readers ability to relate to the poems emotional impli guy ropeions and thus further her argument regarding the futility of mankinds search for closure through the mourning process. By choosing to write the poem in the first person, Kenyon encourages the reader to scan the poem as a story told by the same person who fell victim to the tragedy it details, rather than as a mere account of events observed by a third party. This insertion of the character into the story allows the reader to carefully interpret the messages expressed through her use of diction in describing the events during and after the burial.The diction Kenyon employs for her description of the poems physical and psychological setting serves as Kenyons primary means for presenting her argument regarding the nature of the mourning process and its failure to help those who have lost loved ones. The poems first stanza begins as follows, Like primitives we buried the cat with his bowl. Bare-handed we scraped sand and gravel back into the hole(1-4). The first two words, like primitives, give the reader immediate insight into Kenyons opinion regarding the nature of the burial itself. She sees it as a means of coming to grips with death that is less evolved than the mental state of those that it attempts to help. When the first stanza is interpreted as a whole, the reader is... ...ten through mourning, thus allowing her to exposit one last example supporting her argument regarding the failure of burial and the mourning process to provide a sense of closure for those who have lost a loved one.Through the careful use of diction presented through a first-person perspective, Kenyon is able to use The Blue Bowl as a strength for social commentary regarding what she sees as a primitive mourning process that does not help those who undertake it. Through a careful analysis of the poem, the reader is able to understand Kenyons critique of the mourning ri tuals that humans use to alleviate the grief caused by the death of a loved one and interpret the shortcomings that Kenyon finds. Kenyons use of perspective combined with specifically chosen diction enables her to present a social commentary regarding what she believes to be the inherent shortcomings in the emotional effects of the burial itself and the sense of closure it is supposed to bring yet fails to achieve during a typical period of mourning. Works CitedKenyon, Jane. Poetry 180 - The Blue Bowl. Library of Congress Home. Web. 11 Dec. 2015..