Who doesn't enjoy bad criticism of Wallace Stevens's poem "The Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"?! I can't think of anyone.
Today's is our first reader-submitted analysis. It's from Chuckdaddy, and it discovers a theme of colors within the poem.
Colors
Colors are always important in a poem, but, quite possibly and flagrantly, never quite as much as in Wallace Stevens 1915 powerhouse poem The Disillusionment of 10:00. The key question that jumps right off the page at the reader is, what does this nightgown represent, but he/her has no chance of succeeding with this analysis without KNOWING the color of the nightgown. Fascinatingly, Wallace remains quite coy about this essential detail. Some might think its green, but this cannot be the case, since Wallace says, "None are green." Others might think its red, but actually its the weather that's red, not the night gown. It can't be purple with green rings since the poem says "none are green, or purple with green rings," nor can it be green with yellow rings since Wallace wrote "none are green, or purple with rings, or green with yellow rings," neither can it can be yellow with blue rings. I guess it could be purple with blue rings, but that seems unlikely as I have NEVER seen a bathrobe like that, nor do I want to. It appears then that the most likely course of action is assuming that it is a white night-gown, since Wallace writes "by white nightgowns." Now that this mystery is solved, we can get to the analysis, which is that white represents innocence. Thank you for reading my paper.
2 comments:
Drunk and asleep in boots is an easy color to tell. Drunk. The color is drunk.
My overall opinion is this is an interesting analysis. One favorite thing is solving the mystery that I was having too. My helpful suggestion is it should discuss what the other colors mean also, not just focus on white and innocence.
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