AP Literature Style Essay on Sestina

In this passage from Elizabeth Bishop's, "Sestina," the narrator describes the protective relationship between the main character, a grandmother, and her grandchild.  In the poem, the grandmother wants to shelter her grandchild off from the world of harm and suffering. By titling the poem, "Sestina," Bishop uses six words, house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, and tears in six different stanzas, all in a different order at the end of each line. These six words, in the selected form by the speaker, all work together to narrate the experience of the characters as well as underline the true meaning behind the obvious pain and suffering of the grandmother. Bishop speaks in a dark and depressing tone to express the preceding pain that haunt the main character as well as illustrate corrupt memories.

Tears, a major theme that is referred to literally as well as figuratively, is repeated multiple times in the poem as a way to display the underlying obscure tone. First referred to in line six, “laughing and talking to hide her tears,” Bishop shows the sadness of the grandmother even though she is reading jokes in the almanac which should make her laugh and smile. Continuing the theme of sadness, line seven connects the equinox, an event that happens twice a year where the sun crosses the celestial equator, to her crying creating a tone of mystery in the reader, causing them to wonder what events in her past have caused her so much sadness and pain. At line fourteen, Bishop shifts the meaning of tears, using them only figuratively, giving them human traits. “Her teacup full of dark brown tears” (line 22) creates the illusion of real and figurative tears actually blending together into one description, melding the two definitions of tears in the poem together. 

With the six repeating words at the end of each line in the stanzas, Bishop uses personification to give these items human qualities. For example, in line 11, “the iron kettle sings on the stove,” the speaker gives an iron kettle the ability to sing, although in reality, it could never as it is an inanimate object. The repeated usage of the occurrence of the stove is used as a distraction to the grandmother. Giving her a job to do, the main character tends to it and adds more wood to it as needed. Another object that provided a major role in this poem was the almanac. The almanac symbolizes a recent event that records the horror that has impacted both the grandmother and the child. These repeated symbols make the audience feel as if both the feelings of the grandmother and child are repressed and haunting the characters.

The poem ends with the almanac speaking to the grandmother telling her to “plant tears,” literally telling her to move on from the past as well as the child drawing another rigid house. Due to the form of a sestina the author chose, Bishop uses her final three lines in the seventh stanza to utilize all six words that have been repeated over and over again. By accomplishing her goal of convincing the audience of sorrow and death in her poem, Bishop accurately allows the reader to visual the set scene, succeeding in the initial goal of writing the piece in the first place.