narrow fellow Flashcards
snake X named
exaggerates the menace of snake (link w hope as bird not named)
‘a narrow fellow in the grass
His notice sudden is-‘
alteration of idom ‘snake in the grass’ to include both affability (good nature) ‘fellow’ with connotations of constriction ‘narrow’
concealed sibilance= speaker duplicity exaggerated by the sibilance concealed within or at end of words, S being concealed mirrors snake, until they both come into view.
‘The grass divides as with a comb-
A spotted shaft is seen-‘
vivid similie= tension = S malicious and beyond sight
prosaic ‘comb ( like ‘fellow’) implies something familiar
When snakes seen it’s a ‘spotted shaft’=. another oblique (unclear) desc. snake sense that although snake in full view, it’s still concealed + phallic connotations (hostility in Nature often masculinised), like Frost.
therefore, by representing the snake this way Dickinson characterises nature= both commonplace and threatening, destabilising the romanticised which position nature as refuge, however nature becomes the realm for hidden terrors
switch to tighter iambic trimester to relate boyhood encounter
trimeter= tighter and reflects the speaker’s terror as they recount the memory
‘But when a boy, and barefoot-
I more than once at noon’
plosive alliteration and imagery= speakers percussive (short and loud) heartbeat as the recall being ‘barefoot’ and vulnerable = establishes transcendentalist mans easy communion with nature’ on the contrary humans increased vulnerability at place where human body meets the ground
‘Have passed, I thought, a whiplash unbraiding in the sun’
bracketing commas ‘I thought’= retrospective voice draws attention to distinction between Natures benign appearance and malevolent reality, like Snake disguised ‘at noon’ in plain sight.
‘When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone-‘
as snake ‘wrinkles’ and is gone, departure is stanzaic break/ tension ( previously compressed into octet) finally dispates therefore longest lexical unit takes place in proximity with speaker itself, with stanza refusing a break or relaxation until snake moves away, much like encounter itself.
‘Nature’s people
I feel for them a transport
Or cordiality-‘
return to present after traumatic memory the snake reaffirms ‘cordiality’ he feels with other animals (natures people) as he attempts to reassure nature can still function for him (as it did 4 other transcendentalists) as a realm of benevolent ‘transport’
‘but never met this fellow
Without a tighter breathing
And zero at the bone’
(conjunction, Diction and imagery)
‘But’ dismisses self-persuasion of previous stanza as naive
recollection of snake (and nature’s) hidden danger brings only ‘tighter breathing
‘ (evoking perhaps, the act of serpentine constriction) + ‘zero at the bone’, an embodied sense of annihilation
