How to Analyze a Poem: Part 2

Welcome back! The second part of poem analysis will continue from the first part, starting off with Step 5 of the analysis.

1. active reading (or make your job harder by passively reading first)
2. similes and metaphors
3. popular sayings
4. motifs and themes
5. connotation and denotation, personification
6. imagery, symbolism
7. message

This is this same poem we used for analysis in the first part.

To be or not to be?

Do not cry.

Crying is for the weak hearted.

Do not show emotion.

Emotion is for the strong hearted.

Anger is for the passionate.

Violence is for the dominant.

Do not like pink.

Colours have genders, one is superior.

Pink is female.

Blue is male:

The sky is blue.

They may be soldiers but we are the weapons.

Machinery without hearts we should be,

To kill and fight as we please.

We are of few words,

For that is how we must be.

To be the robots or not to be?

Our families and mothers teach us you see,

To be the villians or not to be?

Or to be the heroes we wish to be?

It all comes down to destiny,

Peace comes from the foundation of ambiguity.

"Female" cannot be spelt without "male" as

gender cannot be without a pair.

We can be the heroes,

If society taught equality.

We are misunderstood:

We were born as children and learnt everything we know,

Blank slates on which writing began to show.

To be in control and controlling is what we learnt to know.

Teach us something else and we continue to grow,

Winter may seem endless till the sky begins to show.

-UniqueFAYS

Step 5: Connotation and denotation. Denotation is the direct/literal meaning of words. 'Heart' refers to the organ that punps blood throughout the body. Connotation is the indirect/figurative meaning of the words. It's an abstract idea or feeling the word can convey. 'Heart' refers to one's emotions, soul, passion, attachment, and/or sense of self. When reading the poem, try to compare the literal and figurative meaning of the words written, because sometimes, the writer could be trying to prove a point about something. For example, if we look at the phrase 'machinery without hearts', the phrase's denotative meaning is quite obvious. Machines of course, don't have hearts, they are not living beings. But if we look at the connotation, we know that this is a metaphor of some people being like machinery with hearts, much like robots. The connotation is that some people are lifeless, and without emotion, as hearts can refer to those things as well. Machines can also refer to being programmed to do certain things, which links back to the themes of Choice and Victimization. Personification is also something that occurs in the poem, which is when something inhuman, non-living, is given a humanistic trait. For example, 'blue is male' and 'pink is female'. 'Colours have genders' and 'one is superior' is in it's literal sense, crazy and wrong. But figuratively, a metaphor is being made of colours being like humans. They are given human traits. If we go further, 'the sky is blue' also adds onto the personification, like a layer on top. Sky=blue=male. Now why does that line occur after the personification, what is the writer trying to emphasize or hint at? If you look a few lines before, the line 'one is superior' is stating that one gender is superior. If the blue=male and pink=female dichotomy is being explained here, then the write is most likely going to point out which is superior. 'Blue is male: the sky is blue', literally, one of the most superior things in our world is the sky, it's always above everyone else. Although indirectly, the writer makes the connection that superior=sky=blue=male. Hence, the male gender is superior.

Step 6: Imagery and symbolism. Imagery is the use of visually descriptive or figurative language, while symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas. This is the fine-tuning step of your analysis. If we look at the most visually descriptive part of the poem,

Teach us something else and we continue to grow,

Winter may seem endless till the sky begins to show.

you can see how imagery is used to convey the emotions of the narrator. 'Winter may seem endless' is showing the hopelessness of a situation; winter is cold, barren, dangerous, colourless, and usually lasts longer than other seasons. The sky beginning to show is probably a reference to the end of winter, since during winter, it's very cloudly and the sun is blocked by the clouds, and daylight also shortens. The sky beginning to show could mean spring, the next season, when it gets warmer and brighter and more colourful because of flowers. Spring also has the connotation for new begginings and hope. If we connect the two line togather, as the comma suggests, the narrator could be saying the if they were taught differently, they would grow as people, and whatever hope that seemed lost for them could be reignited, perhaps there's still hope left for them. Or maybe there is a hope for redemption. If we look at symbolism, the previous connection of the sky=male could also be used as a symbol in this example. If we consider the sky as a symbol for male, and winter being the facade covering the sky, the narrator could be suggesting that whatever they are right now is not who they truly are, but rather a product of what they were taught, so if they taught differently, perhaps their true selves could begin to show, again a hope for redemption.

Step 7: Message. Throughout the entire poem, if you look carefully, you'll notice that everything written hints at the identity of the narrator, who they, what they are, who they want to be, and what they think. I'm sure you have a clear idea of who the narrator is, or specifically what type of person they are (I'm talking about the reigning theme of gender). Right now, I want you to guess the gender of the narrator. The answer should come automatically after all the analysis we've done so far. I won't tell you the answer, though I do want you to ask yourself, why you think that's the correct answer. Look closely at the poem and notice how there is not one direct reference to the gender of the narrator? We can assume the gender but there is no direct proof. I want you to notice how deeply rooted our ideas of gender are. If you use the colour=gender argument, did you assume the narrator's gender just because they aren't supposed to like pink? Could it have been a rebellious narrator, challenging gender roles by telling themself to not like pink maybe. No, you came up with a conclusion all by yourself because the writer laid out all the hints for you. That's how deeply rooted our gender education is, that's what the write is trying to convey. This will be very embarrassing for me if you guess the wrong gender huh? So as the last hint, I'll send you back to the title of the poem. The very famous and popular saying 'to be or not to be' is a literal reference to a particular type of person contemplating on where to die or not, because of life's hardships. Although our narrator is contemplating on type of person they should be instead, the essense of the saying remains the same. There must be a reason the gender of the narrator is not pointed out but rather something you can assume. Because the main point is not what the gender of the speaker is, but rather what the gender means specifically. Society places soo many expectations and rules on gender that a person can't be a person anymore, they have to be a type of person. The point is to acknowledge that gender stereotypes exist because of systematic education ingrained within us since even before we are born. From the moment our family or society learns what gender we are in the womb, everything is decided for us. The clothes we wear, the colour of the nursery, the gender reveal colour, the toys we play with, the friends we can hang out with, the places we can go, the people we can be, the house chores we can do, the personality we can have, the time we have to be at home at, the jobs we can do, the education we can have, and sometimes, even the right to be alive or dead is decided for us based on our gender. In that sense, can we blame the kids that were brought up as such, are we to blame, or our parents, or the system? Did we have a choice?

Anyways~ I hope you learnt something today, and keep practicing these analysis steps, eventually, you'll be doing them out of habit and you'll be able to delve deeper into the world the words are trying to convey. Good luck and happy reading!