Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros

It happens more times than we care to admit. A women leaves her family to marry the “man of her dreams.” Someone who will take her away from her mundane life of chores and cooking and cleaning. They believe it will be a change for the better, but most women end up in a relationship that they are not happy with, much like the character of Cleofilas in Sandra Cisneros’ short story “Woman Hollering Creek.”

All her life, Cleofilas had been looking for “passion”:

But what Cleofilas has been waiting for, has been whispering and sighing and giggling for, has been anticipatng since she was old enough to lean against the window displays of gauze and butterflies and lace, is passion… The kind the books and songs and telenovelas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one’s life, and dows whatever one can, must do, at whatever the cost.

She believes she has found that “passion” in the man that she marries. He takes Cleofilas away from her family and moves them to Seguin, Texas, a small town that is unfamiliar to Cleofilas who grew up on a ranch in Mexico. Things are not as good as she believed they would be. She makes friends with the “neighbor ladies” on either side of her home, Soledad and Dolores, “The woman Soledad on the left, the woman Dolores on the right,” but begins to feel more alone in her new home than she was back with her family in Mexico.

Close by her home is an arroyo called “La Gritona.” She doesn’t know the real meaning behind the name, saying that it’s “such a funny name for such a lovely arroyo.” She goes so far as to ask her neighbors whether they known the reasoning behind the name:

The neighbor ladies, Soledad, Dolores, they might’ve known one the name of the arroyo before it turned English but they did not know now. They were too busy remembering the men who had left through either choice or circumstance and would never come back.

These “neighbor ladies” are a somewhat characterization of what Cleofilas is feeling, and maybe even a look into the her future if she stays in Seguin. The two women are miserable, for one reason or another having to do with their husbands (or lack thereof, I should say). Soledad’s husband left one day and never came back, but she calls herself a widow despite the version people may believe. Dolores’ husband passed away shortly after the death of their two sons in war, making her an actual widow. Cleofilas is plagued by the physical abuse placed upon her by her own husband, but considers herself to be in the same terrible situation as her neighbors, believing she would be stronger than the man in that sort of situation.

The first time she had been so surprised she didn’t cry out or try to defend herself. She had always said she would strike back if a man, any man, were to strike her.

But when the moment came, and he slapped her once, and then again, and again; until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn’t fight back, she didn’t break into tears, she didn’t run away as she imagined she might when she saw such things in telenovelas.

She finds herself unable to make change with her husband, or him with her. She finds herself questioning her relationship with him, as well as the reasons behind Woman Hollering creek. She begins to make a connection between Woman Hollering Creek and the old tale of La Llorona, a woman who drowned her children and was cursed to walk the earth in search of their bodies.

I believe she begins to question La Llorona’s motives for her actions, trying to find something to relate to, and maybe even contemplating for a moment to try and make her fate the same as La Llorona’s.

The stream sometimes only a muddy puddle in the summer, though now in the springtime, because of the rains, a good-size alive thing, a thing with a voice all its own, all day and all night calling in its high, silver voice. Is it La Llorona, the weeping woman? La Llorona, who drowned her own children. Perhaps La Llorona is the one they named the creek after, she thinks, remembering all the stories she learned as a child.

La Llorona calling to her. She is sure of it. … La Llorona. Wonders if something as quiet as this drives a woman to the darkness under the trees.

Breaking past these disturbing thoughts of La Llorona calling out to her, Cleofilas decides to do something about her sad situation and calls out for help from the nurse at her baby’s doctor’s office. The woman, named Graciela, agrees to help. The name Graciela is reminiscent of the spanish word “grace,” which is very fitting considering this woman is a somewhat saving grace for Cleofilas and her child. This woman is going to save Cleofilas from a physically abusive relationship. Graciela puts Cleofilas in touch with her friend, Felice (Spanish for “happy”) who drives her and her child to a bus station in San Antonio.

On their way to the station, Felice drives over past the arroyo and yells out a loud yell:

But when they drove across the arroyo, the driver opened her mouth and let out a yell as loud as a mariachi. Which startled not only Cleofilas, but Juan Pedrito as well.

Every time I cross that bridge I do that. Because of the name, you know. Woman Hollering.Pues, I holler. She said this in a Spanish pocked with English and laughed. Did you ever notice, Felice continued, how nothing around here is named after a woman? Really.

I think at this point, when Cleofilas is so close to escaping her abusive relationship and disappointing life, the connotation of the name “Woman Hollering Creek” is switched around. Instead of being seen as something sad and depressing and bringing up images of a woman who has nothing left to live for, it can be viewed as a cry for hope, for rescue, for change. Cleofilas did what she needed to in order to change her lifestyle and the situation she was in. She put things into her own hands and did what was best for herself and her child.

I have always told myself, much like Cleofilas, that I would never let a man raise a hand to me. I’ve told my husband that if he ever did I would leave him on the spot, no questions asked, no remorse, no excuses, and no apologies. Luckily for me, my husband has never raised a hand in anger towards me or my son. My husband has gone so far as to tell our son that he should never hit girls, no matter what. Because my son is growing older and his beginning to act out and explore his limits with his parents and peers, it is important to enstill those values in him.

If I were to tell Aiden anything about this story it would be that there is never a good reason to hit a woman. One of his most important jobs later in life, as a husband, would be to protect and cherish his family. Treat them with respect and dignity. And never allow yourself to become a bully and ruin someone else’s life with your anger.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

Death is inevitable. Especially when we know how it came about making its way onto our destined path. But what would we end up doing with what little time we have left? What would we reflect on? What would be the last thoughts and images that come to us in those last days, hours, minutes of our life? Hemingway’s story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” takes this idea and puts it into effect through Harry, a character in the story who is on his last leg of life (no pun intended).

After a seemingly insignificant scratch from a thorn, Harry’s leg becomes gangrenous. He feels it in himself that he doesn’t have much time left in life, even with the insistence from his wife that he has the ability to hold on for a little while longer, at least until a plane comes to pick them up.

“You know it doesn’t bother me,” she said. “It’s that I’ve gotten so very nervous not being able to do anything. I think we might make it as easy as we can until the plane comes.”

“Or until the plane doesn’t come.”

Despite her optimistic outlook, Harry doesn’t share the same view. He begins to reflect upon the things that he was unable to accomplish in his life. The things that were on his bucket list, so to speak, of memories to write down and have a lasting record of.

Since the gangrene started in his right leg he had no pain and with the pain the horror had gone and all he felt now was a great tiredness and anger that this was the end of it. For this, that now was coming, he had very little curiosity.

For years it had obsessed him; but now it meant nothing in itself. It was strange how easy being tired enough made it.

Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now.

Harry begins to reflect on his memories. He even begins to reflect on the relationship he has with his wife, and how he isn’t truly happy with her, but questions whether these thoughts are his true feelings or something brought on by the slow spread of sickness that is now taking him down. After a night’s sleep, Harry finds himself in a better mood with his wife.

Eventually, Harry meets the inevitable. He begins to literally feel death upon him. The weight of the end of his life upon him.

Because, just then, death had come and rested its head on the foot of the cot and he could smell its breath.

“Never believe any of that about a scythe and a skull,” he told her. “It can be two bicycle policemen as easily, or be a bird. Or it can have a wide snout like a hyena.”

It had moved up on him now, but it had no shape any more. It simply occupied space.

“Tell it to go away.”

It did not go away but moved a little closer.

“You’ve got a hell of a breath,” he told it. “You stinking bastard.”

It moved up closer to him still and now he could not speak to it, and when it saw he could not speak it came a little closer, and now he tried to send it away without speaking, but it moved in on him so its weight was all upon his chest, and while it crouched there and he could not move or speak, he heard the woman say, “Bwana is asleep now. Take the cot up very gently and carry it into the tent.”

He could not speak to tell her to make it go away and it crouched now, heavier, so he could not breathe. And then, while they lifted the cot, suddenly it was all right and the weight went from his chest.

 

This inevitability of death, and being unable to finish the things that we have wanted to do and accomplish in life is, I think, one of the main ideas of the story. Harry had so many memories, some that he knew and loved, some that he had not fully come to understand the real weight of in his life, but was unable to put them down to review them.

If Aiden were to ask me about “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” I would tell him that sometimes in life, there are things we can’t help and can’t control. Harry could have forseen becoming ill from a small scratch, but didn’t look at the big picture of what could happen to him, which led to his death. Because of this, he didn’t have the time that he really wanted to document his life. He wasn’t able to put something down that would outlast him. I think it is this idea that a person will not always be around to tell us about things that happened in the past and to give us those insights into our personal events is one of the reasons why I have loved taking pictures of Aiden since the moment he was born. I want that record for him to have when i’m gone. I want him to be able to see those good moments, and maybe even the bad, in life that I won’t be able to tell him once I, too, have reached those last moments of my life.

To Build a Fire by Jack London

Jack London’s short story, To Build a Fire can be viewed as a precautionary tale. This man, against all advice and better judgement, decides to travel alone through the Alaskan country to meet some friends. He mis-judges the cold weather, saying that it is

Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold…

The man’s foolishness and inability to properly gauge, or at least get a sense of what the temperature really is, ends up leading to his downfall. This is mainly because “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.” So, to him, the weather could be described as just being cold and not the proper characterization of being below-freezing. “Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head.” This idea of him being able to identify “things” and not their “significance” definately leads to his final outcome: death.

Along with the man was his one and only travel companion, a husky:

At the man’s heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf-dog, gray-coated and without any visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for travelling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man’s judgment.

The dog, in this story, brings about the comparison of knowledge versus instinct. The man, knowing that if his feet and shows get wet in the freezing weather, needs to build a fire is something that he has learned through a taught knowledge. Someone along his path in life made sure that he knew that his feet would become frost bitten if they were not properly warmed.

He knew there must be no failure. When it is seventy-five below zero, a man must not fail in his first attempt to build a fire—that is, if his feet are wet. If his feet are dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail for half a mile and restore his circulation. But the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freeze the harder.

All this the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had told him about it the previous fall, and now he was appreciating the advice.

The dog, on the other hand, knows only from natural instinct that it must chew out the pieces of ice between its toes in order to keep traveling without the further discomfort.

The dog did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and then it went quickly across the white, unbroken surface. Suddenly it broke through, floundered to one side, and got away to firmer footing. It had wet its forefeet and legs, and almost immediately the water that clung to it turned to ice. It made quick efforts to lick the ice off its legs, then dropped down in the snow and began to bite out the ice that had formed between the toes. This was a matter of instinct. To permit the ice to remain would mean sore feet. It did not know this. It merely obeyed the mysterious prompting that arose from the deep crypts of its being.

The idea of instinct versus knowledge is something that everyone, at least once in our lifetime, must face against and decide which one to follow. Instinct brings out that primal being in all of us. It usually occurs when we are faced with something we’ve never had to deal with before, but know in our gut what to do, or what not to do, in that particular situation or circumstance. Knowledge is really the opposite of instinct. We may have that gut feeling to do one thing, but because of what we have been previously taught or have previously experienced, are fairly sure of what to do, because that is what we have been taught to think.

This man, after nearly succeeding at his first attempt at a fire, which was quickly put out by the snow on the tree that he (stupidly) built his fire under, tried several times to get another fire going, without much luck.

A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him.

It isn’t until his desperation has finally caught up to him that he realizes the mistakes he has made, as far as this journey is concerned: “The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner.” Unfortunately for this man, it was a little too late to contemplate on the things that he has done wrong and to look to the advice that was not taken. The man, cold, numb and alone, dies in the snow…

With this new-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness. A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was like taking an anaesthetic. Freezing was not so bad as people thought. There were lots worse ways to die.

The man, accepting his fate, and the fact that he was wrong (“You were right, old hoss; you were right,” the man mumbled to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek) drifts silently and peacefully to his death, leaving behind the dog to look over his body. The dog, who sticks around until finally he “caught the scent of death” on the man, leaves the body behind in order to preserve itself. Because, unlike the man who was traveling on knowledge of the terrain, the dog begins to travel on instinct:

A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers.

If I could give my son, Aiden, any advice using Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” as the basis, it would probably be to trust your own instincts. We can all get to where we need to go based on what we know about one thing or another, but sometimes, what really matters, is what our heart tells us. The man knew how to shield himself from falling into soft patches of ice hidden beneath the snow, but still he found himself falling within one. The man knew that the best way to keep from catching frost bite on his feet was to build a fire and slowly thaw out his extremeties, but despite this knowledge he made a poor judgement call on the placement of his fire and was left with nothing but frozen hands and fingers, and eventually death. Despite all that the man knew it did not help him in the end. We can rely on what we know to get us by, but sometimes there is that instance when we should go by what we feel in order to survive.

The Minister’s Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne’s tale of a minister who chooses to live out the rest of his life with his face covered by a black veil is both haunting and intriguing. The idea of going through life, your face covered from the world, is a metaphor that Hawthorne makes in order to put forth the idea that through life, we all keep our true selves hidden from the world. People percieve what they want of us, based on the first impressions we give.

The minister’s first impression to the town, is one of horror and awe. The townspeople were “so wonderstruck” by the sight of the veil across his face that they felt he had “changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.” A first impression look at the minister brought this general, frightening idea of him to the people who admired and adored him. They were unsure of what he was playing at.

The veil not only frightened the townspeople of the minister, but it also created in themselves a kind of self-doubt and consideration that, throughout his sermons, he was speaking directly to each and every one of them:

Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem–for there was no other apparent cause–he became a man of awful power, over souls that were in agony for sin.

In the black veil, Hathorne creates this metaphor of the true nature of every person. You can make of it what you want, but Hawthorne shows that in every person, there is a fear of what we as a society hide from the people around us, “the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.”

In the middle of the story, Hawthorne, through the minister, gives his true idea of what the veil is signifying:

Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of the multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it drawn. This dismal shade must seperate me from the world…

No matter the type of person you are, whether you keep your heart on your sleeve or close to the vest, there is always something you keep to yourself that we will never let anyone see. It is something that will go with us to our grave, much like the minister and his veil.

In the last moments of his life, the minister is prompted to finally remove the veil from his face: “‘Venerable Father Hooper’ said he, ‘the moment of your release is at hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil, that shuts in time from eternity?'” Upon this question, the minister cries out, “Never!… On earth, never!” With these last words, he passes on, and the people at his death bed decide that he must be buried with his veil, as he so lived his life.

‘Why do you tremble at me alone?’ cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. ‘Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crepe so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasured up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!’

These words, given by the minister during one of his sermons, is the key to understanding the story.

If my son asked me what I thought of this story, I would tell him that we cannot judge others by looks or by what we believe they hide from us. Much like the words of Jesus Christ, he who is without sin shall cast the first stone. We are all guilty of sin in some form or another, and cannot judge others by their outward appearance.

My Poetry Emulation

This Is Just To Say

after William Carlos Williams

Mommy I spilled

my drink

over there by

your books

 

the ones

you probably need

for

your homework

 

Forgive me

it was not

my fault

but Louie and Minnie’s.

Aiden & Minnie. Aiden & Louie. ❤

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

It seems odd that Williams would center his entire (short) poem on a static object like a wheelbarrow, but that was his main point in doing so.

The reader’s attention is automatically brought to this single image of a lonely wheelbarrow in the first stanza. It is then accompanied, in the 2nd stanza, by the image of rain water glazing that wheelbarrow. And finally, by the white chickens that stand close by (3rd stanza).

Alone, the three stanzas convey they’re own single image. A wheelbarrow. Rain water. And chickens. But when you put the three images together, you get this beautiful, yet simple, picture of country life. Maybe life on a farm or in a rural area. To some it would seem like a mundane set of images to put together into a poem, but to Williams, it was his way of depicting a moment in time that most people would take advantage of.

Criticisms of The Red Wheelbarrow all come to the same conclusion about what the main idea of this poem is: it’s a look into something so seemingly simple that, when looked at as a whole and in the right perspective, can be beautiful and moving.

Williams was one of the leading imagist poets, following Ezra Pound, whom he took influence from. His reasoning for writing his poems in short stanzas and with single images was to show the simplicity and the beauty of what he was conveying. It was the idea to take a moment to enjoy the small, seemingly insignificant things in life.

As an adult, I know I tend to look at the bigger picture of life. It’s always about: what bills do I need to pay or what should I make for dinner or when do I go into work. Sometimes I find myself lost in the thoughts of the many things I need to do in my day. It isn’t until my son comes home that I can find myself slowing down a little bit and just enjoying life.

Ever since my son was born, I’ve found myself taking a moment just to drink him in, every little smile and laugh and word he says. Even when i’ve had the longest and hardest of days, just being with my son makes all those things disappear. I like to watch him as he plays and see the look of concentration on his face as he tries to piece together a wooden jigsaw puzzle. The sound of his laugh as he watches his favorite tv show or movie. The rise and fall of his chest as he begins to fall asleep. The little things that make him, him.

The same should be done with all things in life. We should all take a moment to watch a cloud drift across the sky or witness a bee land on a flower and collect pollen. We all tend to lead busy and chaotic lives, but we should also take a leaf from Williams’ book and just slow down and enjoy the scenery before us.

If I give Aiden a piece of advice concerning Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow, it would be to slow down, to take notice of the little things and to not worry so much on the big picture of life, to once and awhile take notice of the things we usually don’t notice. Aiden may only be three-years-old, and he may, for the time being, live life in this very way that he recognizes only the here and now, but I would advise him to keep that mentality throughout his life. Take a moment to smell the roses, as it were, and enjoy the simple things that life puts before us.

 

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost brings up an age-old question of: what is the right path to choose in life? Although some may argue that there is no real right or wrong answer, as there may truly be no right or wrong path, Frost suggests doing the unexpected, the uncertain, and going down the path that is not always chosen.

He brings up the image of a fork in the road, “Two roads diverged.” Immediately you can imagine yourself standing at this crossroad, unsure of which side to choose, “sorry I could not travel both.” Frost adds this line, I think, because most people would consider the idea of wanting to know what awaits them at the end of either road. It’s kind of like those choose your own adventure novels, like the ones by R.L. Stine. Where a scenario would be set and after a few paragraphs you would have to decide whether to follow the creepy monster to see where his lair is, or to run away screaming in the other direction. I know I’m guilty of trying to flip back and forth to try and find out what kind of outcome would occur at the end of each scenario. It’s human nature to want to know exactly what is going to happen.

Frost writes, “I stood and looked down one as far as I could,” his way of saying that we all try to crane our necks to see what is coming up ahead without actually going there to see it. He continues by describing the road as “bent in the undergrowth,” making it clear that he cannot completely see where this road is going. He decides to take the 2nd road, “just as fair” and “grassy and wanted wear.” The idea of this second road is that it’s the more predictable of the two. It’s the path that most everyone chooses, which is why it is worn down from constant travel. The ideal choice for most people is to take the more predictable one. Most people, myself (for the most part) included, are afraid of the unknown. We are afraid of what we don’t know, what we can’t see and where we will end up.

In the third stanza, Frost claims that “I kept the first for another day!” and then recants by saying that “Yet knowing how way leads to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” We all have that habit. Like when we resolve to start losing weight at the beginning of the next week… that week turns into ‘well, maybe next week,’ and on and on until we realize that we never really went through what we promised ourselves in the beginning. Frost is true to himself in saying that “I doubted if I should ever come back” because in “knowing how way leads to way” he knows that life happens and we are sometimes unable to return to that road in life where we wanted to try something new and different.

The last stanza of the poem has a resonating impact on me.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 Frost speaks of looking back fondly on that moment in time where he decided to do something that was unexpected, and how much of a difference it has made on his life. It will always remind me of the moment when my husband and I (who were only dating at the time) decided to have a child together. We were young, only 21 years old, but it was something we both wanted. We knew it would be hard and the idea of starting our own family and living on our own was frightening, but we did it anyways. We took a chance. And I can tell you that having my son, Aiden, was the best decision, the best path, that I could have taken. It’s been hard and unexpected. But knowing that Aiden is one of the best decisions i’ve ever made makes the uncertainty worth it.

If there was anything i’d like Aiden to know about life in connection to Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, it would be to follow your heart and choose to do something unexpected. Sometimes that road may lead you some place that you weren’t expecting, but it’s the decisions in life that make us who we are. You shouldn’t have to follow the crowd just because you know where that path is going to end. Try something new. Something different. Something that, at the end of your life, you can look back on and say “I’m glad I did that.” Good or bad, it will make you who you were meant to be.

Tell All the Truth by Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

Truth is something, Dickinson believed, that must be eased into. To put simply, we must sugar-coat the truth to keep it from blindsiding us.

She says that “success in circuit lies,” which can be interpreted as meaning that the successfulness of telling a lie comes from giving the person to which you are lying, the run-around. That, of course, is if you literally interpret the word circuit, which means a roundabout journey or course. So, for Dickinson, lies are things that are continually circling around us. Maybe even something that we cannot escape.

Dickinson says in her poem that the truth is “too bright for our infirm delight” meaning that people are too weak-minded to be able to wrap our heads around the complete truth of the matter which is being lied about. She says that truth is a “surprise” to people who are unable to recognize a lie when flatly given one. In a way, Dickinson is claiming that people are too weak-minded, maybe even too dim-witted, to understand the difference between lies and the truth.

Dickinson, in the last stanza of the poem, attempts to show how she perceived people that are slowly told the truth. She describes them as “children” who are afraid of lightning. I myself have a small son who was frightened the first time he heard thunder and saw lightning. But with a simple explanation and showing him that there is nothing to be afraid of, it eased his fears of the unknown concept of thunder and lightning. Dickinson describes people as being like my son, afraid of what they don’t understand, but with simple explanation and gentle persuasion they come to realize that there is nothing to fear.

“The truth must dazzle gradually” Dickinson says, “Or every man be blind.” To sum up the entirety of the poem in these two lines, Dickinson is saying that when giving someone the truth, one must do so gently and with some caution. If you give too much of the truth away all at one, it can take the other person by surprise and they can, and will, be caught off guard.

I believe that there are some reasons to, so-call, sugar-coat the truth, but for the most part being blatantly honest is the best course of action. I would rather be hit hard and fast with what is true than guess at what the end out-come will be.