This week, in English 03, we got to explore Ezra Pound’s “In the Station of the Metro.” This poem was very short, but Pound was able to convey its message effectively by the metaphor created in the second line. Pound incorporates the metaphor by creating the image, “petals on a wet, black bough.” The metaphor is the petals of the flower on a tree, which ultimately represents the people at the Metro. Pound uses this metaphor in an abstract way versus a concrete way to emphasize his sudden epiphany.
Pound uses the flower as a metaphor in an abstract way by using the word “petals.” Petals are physically the most attractive part of the plant because they are vibrant and unique in color. However, a petal’s beauty by itself is nothing compared to the beauty created by more than one petal. The petals create the overall image of a beautiful flower, which Pound manipulates this characteristic to emphasize how he feels about the scene in front of him. Pound does not literally see these petals in a concrete manner, but makes this image symbolize the beauty that the people around him create. He makes the petals symbolize the people, and the “wet, black bough” symbolizes the world surrounding them. The area around them may be dark and damp, but all of the people seem to stand out and create a united beauty to this dark world. No longer does Pound ignore their presence, but sees that there had been beauty surrounding him this whole time.
Pound though uses this metaphor in another way, and that is to shift the original tone conveyed by the first line. By creating the flower metaphor in the last line, he stops the solemn and mysterious tone created by the first line. His first line creates this tone by using the word “apparition” and by describing the people as just “faces.” By Pound using the word “apparition,” he grants a supernatural image here, rather than a natural image. The unnamed “faces” create a blurred image, which conveys the notion that these people are unimportant. The flower being used after this line truly uplifts the tone. He switches the poem from the supernatural to the natural world, switching the mood to a more reviving moment. By switching to the natural world, Pound also conveys that this beauty was not forced or arranged, but that it happened naturally.
By Pound using the visual image of a flower as the metaphor in his last line, he effectively conveys to his audience that he had seen beauty even in the dreariness of the Metro. The people were no longer having just plain faces, but were making Pound’s world more vibrant. I put the image above to represent this metaphor. The people in the front of the picture are blurry and ghostlike, just as Pound first sees the people at the Metro. But when you look farther into the picture, the people are becoming more distinct. The people are becoming apparent and the faces are seen. This is what Pound is doing; he is finally not ignoring the people around him, but is seeing what each person does to this scene. He sees that each person brings their own color and beauty to the crowd and is just like a petal to a flower. Only by them all being gathered together at the Metro was Pound able to discover the beauty of the people surrounding him.
I really like your picture for the poem and I think your analysis is of the poem and its content really good. Especially where you talk about how pound uses the flower as a metaphor in an abstract way. I agree with your analysis that a flower is most beautiful when it is more that one petals together.
ReplyDeleteYour idea about how the pedal of the flower creates the beauty of the flower and how the fact that Pound specifically uses the word pedals to create this image of beauty in our head is really good. I also like your picture; the actual image of blurred faces in a crowd is something beautiful in itself.
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