"Filling Station" by Elizabeth Bishop and "The Jailer" by Sylvia Plath - analysis and comparison of styles

1.Elizabeth Bishop - "Filling Station"

The poem consists of seven stanzas. Most of them have six or seven verses, except the very last one, which contains only two.

The first stanza, with a strong exclamation in the beginning verse, introduces the setting - a small, dirty gas station. There is a clearly visible intention of creating some kind of repulsion through the description, as everything is "dirty" and "oil-soaked" - a good example of Objective Correlative, a device frequently used by Bishop. In the second stanza, a family (a father and his sons) is introduced. They are, too, "oil-soaked" and "dirty". The third stanza states the question: "Do they live in the station?", and tries to answer it (there is a porch behind the pumps, a dog - dirty, of course - is lying on sofa). A further proof of the fact that the family lives there appears in the fourth stanza: there are some comic books lying on the taboret (they provide the frist coloured accent in the poem).

Sylvia Plath

23 Fitzroy Road, London : The house where Sylvia P...

Bishop Joseph Inima

As comics are suitable rather for younger children (at least they used to be when the poem was written) and the boys are old enough to help their father at work - they are probably teenagers - it seems that the comic books have been lying there for several years. Then, some accents of femininity appear in the hitherto completely masculine setting: the comics lie on an embroidered doily, next to a large hairy begonia. These are clearly female touches; a male would not embroider a doily with flower patterns, as it is shown in the sixth stanza. The last two stanzas clearly show a presence of a woman: there is "someone" who embroidered the doily, who takes care of the plant (it would be difficult not to love...