Essay on Analysis Of The Poem ' Daystar '

1539 Words Mar 22nd, 2016 7 Pages
Similar to how the father may feel in “My Father Sits in the Dark,” Rita Dove explains in “Daystar” how sitting and doing nothing can be relaxing and a great way to think clearly and without distraction. “Daystar” reveals this by mentioning how the mother sits alone thinking for her own pleasure as long as she can in order to get away from her busy life. The first two stanzas of the poem show that the mother has diapers on the line and that there is a doll laying out in the house, though the mother wants time for thinking. Ergo she sits outside in a chair doing nothing. The diapers and the doll show that the mother has responsibilities such as taking care of her children’s diapers and cleaning up the house. However, the busy mother wants time for thinking, so she does nothing in a chair. This shows how a person, like the father in “My Father Sits in the Dark,” may want to sit and do nothing so that they can think and take a break from their responsibilities. This shows how sitting in a chair out in the garden is more that actually “doing nothing” to the mother. From the mother’s perspective, sitting around is like building a personal place in her mind where she can stay in peace. This may be close to how the father in “My Father Sits Alone in the Dark” feels. Others may not understand why the father sits in the dark doing nothing, but, from his perspective, he’s building his own mental palace. To both parents, sitting peacefully is relaxing and a time for thought that they…

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