analysis of Karl Shapiro's "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

Essay by Anonymous UserUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, October 1996

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Few subjects can be discussed with more insightfulness and curiosity than death. The unpredictability and grimness of it are conveyed well in Karl Shapiro's poem, 'Auto Wreck'. The poem starts with a description of an ambulance rushing to the scene of a crash, and hurriedly gathering up the victims and rushing them away. The aftermath of the police investigation that follows leaves the crowd gathered around the scene to explore privately and individually a range of feelings and emotions about the reality of death. Shapiro's usage of imagery together with figurative language is a key element in

getting the theme of death across to the reader. By bringing the scene of the accident to life and relaying the emotions of the spectators with language and several metaphors, the poem gains a realistic and sometimes transcendent effect. In some places in the poem, the words can easily be taken literally to convey scenery or an emotion, but they can also be taken so as to make the reader think about possible higher meanings.

The thoughtsexpressed in the poem help to suggest these other meanings by clearly stating what is being felt by the speaker and the crowd around the accident. By stating clearly and vividly the emotions of the scene, it is easy for the reader to identify the theme itself, and also to identify with it.

In the first stanza, the speaker describes the ambulance arriving on the scene more so than the actual scene itself. The ambulance is described using words such as 'wings', 'dips', and 'floating', giving the impression of the hectic nature of its business at an accident. When the ambulance arrives and breaks through the crowd, 'the doors leap open' to further convey the hurried state it's in. In line 5, as the ambulance passes...