Analysis

In the poem “Desire” by Molly Peacock, the author displays the uncontrollability of desire through imagery of aromatic incense. It can be assumed, since the poem’s title is “Desire,” that Peacock is describing the attributes of desire. In the lines, “It is the blind instinct for life unruled, / visceral frankincense and animal myrrh,” the author points out desire’s instinct-like behavior by comparing it to incense. Instinct is a feeling or action unguided by rational thought. Similarly, the path that the smoke from incense takes is completely unpredictable, and doesn’t flow straight up, or in any orderly fashion. This unpredictability is also supported in the lines, “It is…without the details of time’s experienced part- / fit-into-part-fit-into-part,” by emphasizing that desire does not follow the strict routine of time, and can do whatever it pleases. By saying desire is similar to “visceral frankincense and animal myrrh,” the author not only displays the pleasant feeling of desire by comparing it to the sweet aroma of incense, but also the uncontrollable nature of desire, like the smoke of incense.

Peacock also characterizes desire as an animal, or a pet to show how it can see past intellectual thought to reach the human’s simplest feelings of want. In the lines “It is…like a pet who knows you and nudges your knee with its snout,” the author compares desire to a familiar pet. From the action of “[nudging] your knee with its snout,” it seems to be using its nose to tell its owner something. Dogs, as an example, have a very good sense of smell; they’re able to detect many objects, actions, and even feelings before a human can. Perhaps the detection of feelings grows stronger the closer the pet is to its owner. The poem hints that desire is like a pet, though it acts off of instinct; it knows what the owner wants, even if, through rational thought, the owner disagrees. The author plays with the idea of listening to the human instinct without rational intervention, something that a pet is able to sense through. Even in the first line, “It doesn’t speak and it isn’t schooled, / like a small foetal animal with wettened fur,” it’s clear that desire is like an animal, not limited by complex thoughts, and makes decisions based purely off of survival instinct (e.g. a baby animal freezing with wet fur would do the first thing needed to survive) In the last lines, “[It’s] the drive for what is real, / deeper than the brain’s detail: the drive to feel,” Peacock really emphasizes the meaning of desire: something humans feel that’s not controlled by rational thought. From using examples of desire being like an animal, the author further conveys the ability of desire to know what its human really wants without rational intervention.

In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, she uses metaphors to display her reliance on her fiance. In the lines, “Were you not still my hunger’s rarest food, / and water ever to my wildest thirst, / I would desert you,” the speaker notes that she doesn’t leave her fiance only because she’s dependent on him. She points out two key needs of survival: food and water. When a man is full of hunger, the reason he is starving is because he has limited access to food, or in other words, food is rare. By comparing her fiance to “hunger’s rarest food,” she emphasizes how important he is to her survival. Similarly, she also describes him as “water ever to my wildest thirst,” characterising him as another necessity for survival. Humans can live without food for over several weeks, but the body cannot support itself over a couple days without water. Since water is held at a higher demand for survival than food, having this line written immediately after the food metaphor, further signifies his importance to her survival. Although it’s not specified how he benefits her survival, whether that be financial stability, or elevated status of class, it’s clear that without him, she wouldn’t live a comfortable life through the metaphors she uses.

In the poem “Secretly I am building in the heart” by Julia Alvarez, the speaker attempts to rebuild a structure made out of love, the idea of which is emphasized through ambiguity, endurance, and maintenance. With the use of vague diction, clear metaphors, and reflection, the speaker further denotes the significance of love.

Using ambiguous wording, the speaker presents love as something universal rather than limited to one person or object. This idea is conveyed in the final line, “I’ve / labored with my heart to outlast the heart / with this thing I’m creating out of love.” The speaker stresses the emotional labor behind the structure by “labor[ing] with [their heart],” but they never define what the creation actually is. Through referring to the structure as a “…thing,” and not specifying the shape it’s taking, this ambiguity allows the structure to represent any form of love. Also, the speaker’s desire to create something “…to outlast the heart” shows that love is expected to live longer than the heart but it’s not specified how. With the word “heart,” something that is associated with emotion, the speaker suggests that love is meant to exist past emotional impulse. By leaving this object of love indeterminate, the speaker suggests that love itself is not bound to a single purpose but can be applied wherever.

The speaker’s actions then reveal how much they value love, shown through the metaphor of building  “…card houses or Popsicle palaces / kids build.” Cardhouses and Popsicle places are known to be frail, and the speaker conveys the fragility of the creation by relating their structure to those easily destroyed ones. Yet though this structure is delicate, the speaker has the persistence required to build it carefully. By “…patiently piecing each part together,” the speaker highlights the time, effort, and focus invested in the structure, emphasizing that love is worth lots of labor despite its delicacy. Furthermore, the speaker admits that this process “…takes so much time,” reinforcing that building this is not a casual or effortless project. Also, the speaker works with the “…ruins from an earlier effort,” continuing to rebuild it rather than quitting and abandoning the structure altogether. The perseverance in these actions demonstrates that love has great importance to the speaker. 

Not only is love important, but the speaker also points out that love requires continuous maintenance. This is shown in the lines, “[A] new thing I am making that takes so much time / to finish if there’s finish in these things,” where the speaker reflects on the task and questions love’s finitude. By doubting “…if there’s finish in these things,” the speaker wonders whether there even is an end. Alongside thinking about a “readymade” alternative, the speaker questions whether the act of building love is worth the effort. However, in the last two lines, they then accept love as an ongoing process that demands consistent labor and care. The structure the speaker builds is not infinite because it’s unbreakable, but because it must be continually tended to. The speaker implies that love’s stability lies in its need for persistent nurture.

In “Secretly I am building in the heart,” love is described as an enduring object that requires care and precision. Through the speaker’s word choice, metaphors, and reflection, love is illustrated as a universal resource that continues to grow.

In The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner uses nature imagery to explore the Compson family dynamics. Through trees, honeysuckle, and jimsonweed, Faulkner shows how rebellion, loss of innocence, and neglect define members of the family.

In the book, trees symbolize rebellion, freedom, and how the Compson women defy familial authority. When Caddy climbs the trees to peek at Damuddy’s funeral, her brothers and Versh immediately interjects, “‘Your paw told you to stay out that tree’” (45). Yet Caddy is not intimidated and invokes her father’s instruction that she be obeyed, displaying how she slyly escapes authority by working around the rules.Caddy climbs anyway, above everyone else, further emphasizing her defiance against her family. The tree she climbs is the first place where she shows that her desire for knowledge matters more than what the men in her family permit her to do. A generation later, Jason, echoing his father, prohibits his niece Quentin to sneak out, yet he is unsuccessful. Luster notes about her, “‘They come every night she can climb down that tree’” (50). This shows that Quentin’s climbing of the tree is much more frequent and consistent than Caddy’s, suggesting a greater range of freedom. Since Jason is the only one now that actively opposes her and Luster and Benjy simply watch as bystanders, Quentin is much more successful in her endeavors. The book vividly describes her actions through the lines, “It came out of Quentin’s window and climbed across into the tree. We watched the tree shaking” (74). Through this imagery, the shaking of the tree presents her rebellion in a physical way. For both Caddy and Quentin, the tree is the one place that the Compson family cannot reach, and each time the girls climb the tree, they are choosing freedom over the family’s restricting expectations. 

Faulkner also uses the smell of honeysuckle to show how Caddy’s loss of virginity affects Quentin. In their childhood, the smell was a part of the innocent world they lived in. Caddy saying, “You used to like it” (153), emphasizes the transformation Quentin underwent. Even though the smell didn’t change, things around it did. Caddy’s loss of virginity turns the honeysuckle from a reminder of innocent childhood into something Quentin relates to the shame of their family. Quentin thinks, “Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled, getting the odor of honeysuckle all mixed up” (128). Here, the honeysuckle is associated with rotting and decay, suggesting that Quentin sees Caddy’s promiscuity as a kind of death. When she loses her virginity, Quentin enters a state of delirium and the honeysuckle represents this. When he says, “I had to pant to get any air at all out of that thick gray honeysuckle” (151), it implies that the scent is suffocating him, like a thick cloud of gray smoke. “Gray” could also describe how the warmth of honeysuckle was drained, the same way Caddy’s loss of innocence took away Quentin’s understanding of the world. When Quentin confesses, “Honeysuckle was the saddest odor of all, I think” (169), his transformation is complete. Honeysuckle, a simple pleasant smell from childhood, is now a constant painful reminder of his once pure Caddy Compson.

Jimsonweed, a toxic and hallucinogenic plant, is used to show how poorly Benjy is treated and that his distorted perception of reality could be caused by something other than his cognitive disability. At first, Luster hands jimsonweed to Benjy whenever he becomes distressed, saying, “Here’s you a jimson weed” (6), as a way of quieting him. He treats Benjy more like a chore to complete rather than a human being. But, when Dilsey confronts Luster after he knocks Benjy’s weeds over, he never mentions the jimsonweed at all, telling her that, “[Benjy] was playing with that bottle full of dogfennel and all of a sudden he started up bellering” (56). The replacement of jimsonweed with a different harmless plant shows how Luster tries to hide something that is hurting Benjy. This demonstrates the cruelty of his caretaking. The effects of the weed are also written directly into Benjy’s narration. Jimsonweed is known to cause hallucinations, disorientation, and an inability to differentiate between sleeping and waking. Benjy’s section hints at these symptoms. He repeatedly describes “bright shapes” moving across his vision, saying that “the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep” (75). The phrase “even when Caddy says that I have been asleep” implies that he is unable to distinguish his dreams from reality. The wheel imagery of “bright tops of wheels” (11) reflects blurred vision and confusion, symptoms associated with jimsonweed toxicity, hidden in his abstract stream of consciousness. At the end of the book, the broken flower that “drooped over Ben’s fist” (321) while “his eyes were empty and blue and serene” (321) shows an image of vacancy in his mind, and this dissociation points to the effects of jimsonweed. These details suggest that Benjy’s confusing narration is due to not only his disability, but the exposure to a toxic plant that nobody seems concerned about removing from his hands. 

Through trees, honeysuckle, and jimsonweed, Faulkner uses the natural world to display key issues in the family. Rebellion, lost innocence, and neglect are themes that define each member of the family and ultimately contribute to their fate.