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¶ … Elizabeth Bishop's, "Filling Station"
Elizabeth Bishops poem "Filling Station" is about the poet's ability to see something magnificent in the most ordinary of things. It is through the observation of a dirty filling station that Bishop is able to see an example of love. Bishop is known by her skill of employing imagery with attention to detail. (Lauter 2294) In "Filling Station,"she successfully transforms a greasy filling station into a place that displays expressions of love. By engaging the reader in the poem by posing questions, she is asking the reader to look beyond what is on the surface and search for something more.
Bishop has selected the perfect subject for the topic of her poem, as most people would not find a filling station attractive nor would most people stop to think about a filling station -- in one way or another. Although it is just a dirty, greasy filling station, there are elements that Bishop notices and draws attention to, as if to reinforce her point at the end of the poem, which is that everyone is loved by someone. Only through careful observation, is she able to reach this conclusion.
Through elaborate detail, Bishop is able to create...
(Schmidt 829) In "Filling Station," she does this by drawing attention to opposites in the poem by having the words oily and doily rhyme. Alliteration is also an important tool, as she says "big dim doily" and "big bersute begonia." Repetition is important as well, as she repeats the reference to oily or dirty five times in the first two stanzas.
The poem begins with short lines that present a negative image of the filling station. For instance, the poet says "it is dirty... oil soaked and oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all black translucency" (McClatchy 34;1, 3-5). However, as the poem progresses, Bishop begins to introduce other elements about the filling station that soften station's harsh appearance. For example, she wonders if the father and sons live at the filling station because she notices items that represent the feel of home: a sofa and a "dirty dog, quite comfy" (McClatchy 34;19, 20). She goes on to include a taboret covered with a doily situated next to a begonia. Bishop successfully creates a contrast between the dirty filling station and a place someone might call home.
Bishop begins this discovery by noticing certain…
Works Cited
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington D.C. Heath and Company. 1990.
McClatchy, J.D., ed. Contemporary American Poetry. New York: Vintage Books. 1990.
Trilling, Lionel. Literary Criticism. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc. 1970.
Schmidt, Michael. The Lives of the Poets. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1999.
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