Biographical Information Dorothea tanning grew up in Galesburg Illinois and spent thirty years living in Paris before moving to New York City. Her artistic abilities included painting, printmaking, sculpture, costume design, and set making. Dorothea was around eighty years old when she began to write poetry, the poems were displayed in Yale Review, the New Yorker, Poetry, And the New Republic.
Poem Structure Dorothea tanning has a format of one stanza that is 14 lines long and contains 8 sentences. She has a definite end rhyme and an A,B type rhyme like eyes and pulverize. Since the poem is in one stanza and has an end rhyme it is meant to be read quickly. 1Be perfect, make it otherwise. 2Yesterday is torn in shreds. 3Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes 4Rip apart the breathing beds. 5Hear bones crack and pulverize. 6Doom creeps in on rubber treads. 7Countless overwrought housewives, 8Minds unraveling like threads, 9Try lipstick shades to tranquilize 10Fears of age and general dreads. 11Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies, 12Don’t take faucets for fountainheads. 13Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise 14You and the werewolf: newlyweds
The Speaker 1Be perfect, make it otherwise. 2Yesterday is torn in shreds. 3Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes 4Rip apart the breathing beds. 5Hear bones crack and pulverize. 6Doom creeps in on rubber treads. 7Countless overwrought housewives, 8Minds unraveling like threads, 9Try lipstick shades to tranquilize 10Fears of age and general dreads. 11Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies, 12Don’t take faucets for fountainheads. 13Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise 14You and the werewolf: newlyweds The speaker sees that these house wives are in fear of growing old, using lip stick to hide their age, for the speaker is associating age with insanity. It seems as if the speaker is looking at these house wives seeing that they are going into insanity because of their age
1Be perfect, make it otherwise. A 2Yesterday is torn in shreds. B 3Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes A 4Rip apart the breathing beds. B 5Hear bones crack and pulverize. C 6Doom creeps in on rubber treads. B 7Countless overwrought housewives, C 8Minds unraveling like threads, B 9Try lipstick shades to tranquilize D 10Fears of age and general dreads. B 11Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies, D 12Don’t take faucets for fountainheads. B 13Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise D 14You and the werewolf: newlyweds B Literary Elements The poet definitely uses end rhyme throughout the poem especially B rhyme The end rhyme creates a distinct beat or rhythm to each set of rhymes. The speaker uses words such as threads, tasty, and swat to create imagery and sensory details
Even More Literary elements 1Be perfect, make it otherwise. 2Yesterday is torn in shreds. 3Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes 4Rip apart the breathing beds. 5Hear bones crack and pulverize. 6Doom creeps in on rubber treads. 7Countless overwrought housewives, 8Minds unraveling like threads, 9Try lipstick shades to tranquilize 10Fears of age and general dreads. 11Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies, 12Don’t take faucets for fountainheads. 13Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise 14You and the werewolf: newlyweds The Speaker tends to describe inanimate objects with human characteristics like lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes, or breathing beds. This adds personification to the poem. The speaker implements a word into the poem (like) to create similes like “minds unraveling like threads” using this simile she creates a sense of insanity.
ABe perfect, make it otherwise. BYesterday is torn in shreds. ALightning’s thousand sulfur eyes BRip apart the breathing beds. AHear bones crack and pulverize. BDoom creeps in on rubber treads. ACountless overwrought housewives, Literary Elements End Rhyme: The Speaker clearly uses an a,b end Rhyme Personification: The speaker mentions that doom creeps in on rubber treads, and lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes rip apart the breathing beds The speaker uses imagery such as Countless, or thousand.
Even more literary elements 8Minds unraveling like threads, 9Try lipstick shades to tranquilize 10Fears of age and general dreads. 11Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies, 12Don’t take faucets for fountainheads. 13Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise 14You and the werewolf: newlyweds The Speaker uses simile such as “Minds unraveling like threads”
Imagery The Breathing beds are meant to represent people sleeping, and since they are breathing while under the covers making the beds appear to be breathing.
Imagery Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes Probably meant to represent how lightning seems to glow
Authors purpose I believe the authors purpose is to tell those who are weird, strange, or even don’t fit in that being themselves is ok even in a crowd that is different than they are
Theme The lesson we all learn is that we should never judge a book by its cover, for you may not know them, making it difficult to trust them or not.
Figurative meaning What the figurative meaning of this poem is, is that you should try not to fit in you should be yourself and try not to be a hypocrite, because if you show others what you are not you may have someone ore some people interested in you that you don’t want to even be near.
Literal meaning I think that the poet is trying to convey that you should always be yourself.
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