In The Waiting Room –

Please read carefully and identify the features of language in the poem, and quotes, that most strongly support these statements…

1. Bishop is careful to begin the poem with the mention of a specific geographical location. The attention to detail, the childish tone, the simplistic language – all establish the child’s perspective. The theme of the poem – identity and place – is established through this.

2. Her account is matter-of-fact, unelaborated – we notice the child’s idiom, the childish pride at her ability to read. The speaker’s need to define herself in her own terms is strongly suggested here.

3. The volcano echoes other instances of Bishop’s concern with interiors (c.f. The Fish). It becomes a metaphor for her unsettling subconscious thoughts, and a catalyst for the surprise her body is about to spring on her.

4. The images in the magazine – cannibalism, ornamental mutilation, naked women – unsettle her, but she wants to hide her anxiety and attempts to reconnect with the world of assurances.

5. The turmoil is irrepressible and erupts, disrupting her certainties. Her horrified, delayed, bewildered reaction leads to a collapse in her self-assuredness and identity. Note her description of the dizziness and her attempt to restore stability. This feeling of falling into another place, a place of uncertainty, the unknown and the unknowable – alerts her to the frailty of the world of certainties. As in other poems, we see the strange consequences a small incident can have.

6. At this stage in the poem, the speaker’s idea of an identity isn’t as appealing. She seems to have acquired a fresh, terrifying understanding of identity. What caused this? The image and prospect of what she might become.

7. She is disturbed by the notion of a collective and shared identity breaking into her consciousness. The poem is a form of birth, an awakening of the mind. The speaker is alerted to thoughts of a collective identity, the understanding of common features and resemblances, the commonness of the human being.

8. The speaker’s state of turmoil, discomfort and disorientation is clear; the room is now “too hot”. Then just as quickly the moment is over. She is back in the everyday world. It is impossible to stay locked in the mind, circling the complexity of human identity. What is the difference at the end of the poem? Compare the start and the end. What is mentioned that wasn’t before? Perhaps the speaker has come to understand that we are in this world together.

What people have said about the poem…

· “Just as the picture essay Bishop describes "is not to be found in the February 1918 National Geographic," so "Anyone checking to see whether Miss Bishop's aunt was named Consuelo probably ought to be prepared for a similar thwarting of curiosity." In the face of this, one might well pose the question: "If the facts are 'wrong,' why did Bishop make such a point of them in the poem?"”
· “young Elizabeth is not really discovering her sexuality so much as she is discovering her own participation in the human race. The result, therefore, is an epiphany on a larger order than awakening of sexual orientation, and the poem does not seem interested in excluding human relations at all but rather on noting their peculiar, "unlikely" tenuousness. The poem does not close, after all, focusing on those breasts but rather on a deadly political issue.”
· “In 1961, Bishop wrote "The Country Mouse," a memoir dedicated to her childhood return to Worcester, Massachusetts. In the final paragraphs, Bishop begins to trouble over the obvious: the social obligation of being human. She recalls with sensitivity the strangeness of being a human being. As she waits for her aunt in the dentist's waiting room:
I felt . . . myself. In a few days it would be my seventh birthday. I felt I, I, I, and looked at the three strangers in panic. I was one of them too, inside my scabby body and wheezing lungs. "You're in for it now," something said. How had I got tricked into such a false position? I would be like that woman opposite who smiled at me so falsely every once in a while. "You are you," something said. "How strange you are, inside looking out. You are not Beppo, or the chestnut tree, or Emma, you are you and you are going to be you forever." It was like coasting downhill, this thought, only much worse, and it quickly smashed into a tree. Why was I a human being?
Which features of her poetry could we find in this poem…?
· unnerving images
· engages with reader by demanding that we consider her questions
· vivid imagery and striking metaphors
· keenness of perception of the world about her
· displays her need throughout her life to find or create stability and order
· distinctly feminine voice
· writing narratives that run against the grain of
the male narratives that dominate the world
· engrossing internalised debates
· dramatic narratives
· euphonic language
· fascinating universal themes
· profound sensitivity and compassion
· honest investigation into her own anxieties