Daystar Rita Dove Analysis
Most every mother has been there; feeling overwhelmed, constantly trying to pilfer a few precious and private moments from the never-ending days and too-short nights of the hectic, domestic servitude that is motherhood, and rarely ever does one succeed. However, in “Daystar,” a confessional poem that relies heavily on the poetic devices of connotation and imagery to describe the loneliness and weariness of a young mother who feels trapped in her domesticity, poet Rita Dove does just that, however briefly – she finds “a little room for thinking” amid the chaos and clutter of an otherwise dreary life.
The first line of the poem, “She wanted a little room for thinking,” states this common wish succinctly, and the following two lines, “but she saw diapers steaming on the line/A doll slumped behind the door,” utilize connotation to insinuate much more than a messy house or the presence of very young children. The steaming diapers represent the mother’s intensive labor and the slumping doll, her weary mood – perhaps becoming symbolic for the sleeping children or the mother herself. The …show more content…
“Sometimes there were things to watch” (line 6), Dove opines, such as “the pinched armor of a vanished cricket” (line 7), or “a floating maple leaf” (line 8), while other times the worn-out woman found pleasure in staring at nothing at all: “Other days/she stared until she was assured/when she closed her eyes/she'd only see her own vivid blood,” (lines 8-11). Nevertheless, some slight connotation can be found in these lines as well. The things she sees – crickets and maple leaves and the insides of her own eyelids – are in no way as important as the things she does not see – steaming diapers, needy children, and a cluttered house. She has succeeded in carving out “a little room for thinking” behind her
The first line of the poem, “She wanted a little room for thinking,” states this common wish succinctly, and the following two lines, “but she saw diapers steaming on the line/A doll slumped behind the door,” utilize connotation to insinuate much more than a messy house or the presence of very young children. The steaming diapers represent the mother’s intensive labor and the slumping doll, her weary mood – perhaps becoming symbolic for the sleeping children or the mother herself. The …show more content…
“Sometimes there were things to watch” (line 6), Dove opines, such as “the pinched armor of a vanished cricket” (line 7), or “a floating maple leaf” (line 8), while other times the worn-out woman found pleasure in staring at nothing at all: “Other days/she stared until she was assured/when she closed her eyes/she'd only see her own vivid blood,” (lines 8-11). Nevertheless, some slight connotation can be found in these lines as well. The things she sees – crickets and maple leaves and the insides of her own eyelids – are in no way as important as the things she does not see – steaming diapers, needy children, and a cluttered house. She has succeeded in carving out “a little room for thinking” behind her