Wallace Stevens in his poem The Snow Man create a distinctive dramatic situation in an effective imagery, and which makes the reader to use another approach of thinking in order to understand the poem and also realize its theme. Wallace explicates the inability of people to noticing the world around them without judging or imagining of human condition. Via this poem, Wallace shows distinction between the reality and imagination.
The first responsibility that Wallace undertakes is demonstrating to the reader the difference between how people perceive scene, against how non-living object would perceive a scene. I imagine the speaker neglecting a scenario in which an individual walks out of their resident following a snow storm, depressed after the blanket of snow making it hard to carry out their daily chores. A snowman rests in his yard, unmoved by the winter scene. This poem presents a slight instructive feel in that the author is explaining to the readers how much beauty is there in the world that is concealed as a result of humans’ failure to observe a situation absolutely selflessly.
The snow Man poem can be termed as one long sentence in five stanzas, combined as a verse. This run-on sentence make the poem to be unreal, as if from the misunderstanding of one’s mind. Because it is impossible for one to understand what world would look like through the eyes of a nonliving being, assumption is a determining factor to Wallaces’ rationale. Also there is no specific meter; each foot differs: the poem happens to be a combination of iambs, dactyls, anapests, trochees, and spondee. Failure to use a uniform meter through this poem implies the manner in which a given condition will differ depending on the person’s present situation. For instance, a child may be overjoyed by the view of snow due to their humorous disposition. in contrast, an adult may be concerned with the prospect of snow due to the availability of a new young driver in the family. In situations, snow, and thus nature, is not being observed without the sway of one’s personal condition.
Wallace employs multiple shifts of point of view in this poem. In the first stanza, the reader turns to be “we” who possesses “a mind of winter,” that is the snow man. Wallace demonstrates solely visual explanations, purposely without any other senses that constitute a negative implication of winter. The line “And have been cold a long time” in the beginning of the second stanza, reflects the first line of the poem, which emphasizes one to understand winter. This association gives implication that one must be without sensation to the people impacts of winter, and nature in general.
In the third stanza, the reader is shifted from the snowman to a normal person who finds “misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves” as demonstrated in lines eight and nine of the poem. The sensory information of sound is depicted in this stanza; where it is described as misery. Wallace argues that the sound of wind that people view so miserable, is the same wind “that is blowing in the same bare place” as stated in line twelve. In this line, and the one that follows, Wallace demonstrates relation between humans and the nature in that they live on the same Earth, in the same circumstances; however these circumstances vary as a result of human situation and thoughts.
The “one” with whom the reader has associated has turned to “the listener, who listens in the snow” in the last stanza. He happens to be the snow man, and he understands winter in its strictest certainty, and human feeling. However, the writer argues that, people reach a point when view the winter scene reduced into complete reality, as the object not of the imagination, but of the exact thought of existence. Then the scene, changes ones thoughts association, and tends to believe what is not there. The final stanza from this approach almost shows a paradox. At the start of the poem, Wallace alludes to the opinion that humans cannot view the land for what indeed is, because it is normally marred by human fact. Nevertheless, in the end stanza, Wallace argues that nature is what it is as a result of human thought. This argument creates a debatable discussion. The various alterations in this poem make an unbreakable association between people and nature, and imply that one cannot succeed or exist without the other.
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Wallace’s word option, or diction, contributes to the presentation of the winter landscape he explains. The terms “crusted,” “shugged,” and “rough” shows the vision of a very plain nature, and gives the real image of nature, as observed via the eyes of the snowman. The reader presented with phrases that permit them to listen with acutest ear the cold presentation awakening the sense of plainness and monotony. Also the word “few”, before give implication that, little life exists. These explanations are about humans, and the general feeling that winter is a season likeness of death, monotony, and solitude. Several use of the word “nothing” in the end stanza highlights not only the thought of emptiness, but the thought that possibly one can never understand the world around them, for with thought, the scenery is morphed, and without thought, the scene doesn’t subsist.
In conclusion, after analysis of this poem it is obvious that scenery has been placed inside the person. This is explained by line eleven and twelve (“Full of the same wind” &” That blowing in the same bare place”). The wind blows inside the viewer and at the same time outside, thus it is clear why this person who is presented as ‘nothing’ can watch nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. Therefore, this poem is not solely about a snowman, however a man and how he perceives the snow.