Out of the bag Flashcards
Summary
Section I is told from the perspective of a child. The speaker has seen the doctor repeatedly arrive with a bag, disappear into a room, reappear again with an empty bag, and leave again. Because of this, the speaker believes that all babies come from that bag. The doctor represents both familiarity and the unknown to the speaker. The speaker imagines how the doctor makes babies out of little baby parts he has hung up on the ceiling.
Out of the Bag
-Where does life come from? Maybe a bag?
-Humanity
-Philosophical idea
-Poem reveals itself slowly like a bag
All of us came in Doctor Kerlin’s bag.
He’d arrive with it, disappear to the room
And by the time he’d reappear to wash
All – Hyperbolic
Us – Collective pronoun
Doctor Kerlin’s Bag – Contains many mysteries / Expertise with the ability to create life / Baby parts
Out of the bag - Where does life come form / child like understand of where life comes from / we may eventually know via science but not truly
Disappear / Reappear – Mysterious and magical / same feelings towards life and birth
Those nosy, rosy, big, soft hands of his
In the scullery basin, its lined insides
The colour of a spaniel’s inside lug
Spaniels inside lug – Noble colour
Nosy, Rosy – Half rhyme and childish
Scullery basin - scientific
Were empty for all to see, the trap-sprung mouth
Unsnibbed and gaping wide. Then like a hypnotist
Unwinding us, he’d wind the instruments
Back into their lining, tie the cloth
Like an apron round itself,
Darken the door and leave
Hypnotist – Lack of control / revered and powerful / manipulations / superiority (Smilie) - magical part of doctor
Instruments – Surgical tools / magical powerful and unreal / miracle of birth
Darken the door – mystery / Sinister and bad luck
With the bag in his hand, a plump ark by the keel …
Until the next time came and in he’d come
In his fur-lined collar that was also spaniel-coloured
Ark – Noah’s arch is a biblical reference / God like
Fur lined collar – Luxurious
And go stooping up to the room again, a whiff
Of disinfectant, a Dutch interior gleam
Of waistcoat satin and highlights on the forceps.
Dutch interior gleam – Dutch mastery of arts / Realisms / Cool distinctive colours / Dutch masters and painters who are skilled / both an art and science
Waistcoat satin – Higher class
Getting the water ready, that was next—
Not plumping hot, and not lukewarm, but soft,
Sud-luscious, saved for him from the rain-butt
Sud-luscious – cleaning and disinfecting
Saved for him – Reference to Jesus our savior
/S/ - Flower brought to life with water
And savoured by him afterwards, all thanks
Denied as he towelled hard and fast,
Then held his arms out suddenly behind him
Savored by him - Reference to Jesus our savior
To be squired and silk-lined into the camel coat.
At which point he once turned his eyes upon me,
Hyperborean, beyond-the-north-wind blue,
/c/ - alliteration priest like clothing
Hyperborean – Idealized Greek Eutopiea / Beyond the blue / Living in perfect existence and superiority / power and status now
Two peepholes to the locked room I saw into
Every time his name was mentioned, skimmed
Milk and ice, swabbed porcelain, the white
And chill of tiles, steel hooks, chrome surgery tools
And blood dreeps in the sawdust where it thickened
At the foot of each cold wall. And overhead
Steel hooks, chrome surgery tools – tools surgical and scientific
The little, pendent, teat-hued infant parts
Strung neatly from a line up near the ceiling—
A toe, a foot and shin, an arm, a cock
A bit like the rosebud in his buttonhole.
A toe, a foot and shin, an arm, a cock / Asyndetic list more gothic and less fantastical / a bunch of parts
Imagination of how the child imagines babies are made
