1. What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight? How doe these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?
Answer:
The “bell” is heard as quick and soft (and silver is that possible?). The bell keeps beating, like the heart beats. It is nighttime, (down and dark), and the only light is the emergency flare being sent into the sky. The flare itself is ruby, “pulsing out red light…” this is like blood poring out of a wound. The imagery suggests that the accident was a fatal one, these images are the first warnings we get that the car accident was fatal. The use of red and dark symbolize blood and death.
2. On the literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have: mangled (line 9), “tolls once” (line 11), “terrible cargo” (line 12), “rocking, slightly rocking (line 13), deranged and composed (lines 15 and 16).
Answer:
Literally, mangled is speaking about the bodies, they are horribly contorted, and unrecognizable. Mangled is used as a noun, actually to describe the bodies, suggesting how horrible the scene really is. Tolls once (a verb) is the ambulance pulling away (church bell too, but that’s not literal). Terrible cargo is the dead bodies the ambulance is carrying away from the scene, again this tells us how horrible the scene really is, like line 11, the bodies aren’t even called bodies, suggesting how terrible the accident really was. Line 13, the ambulance is rocking on it’s wheels as it drives away. Deranged suggests how shocked the witnesses are after seeing the seen, and seeing the police cleaning it up. The police are the composed ones, unlike the crowd, they see these horrible accidents everyday, they are not distraught over what they just saw.
3. Analyze the metaphors in lines 3, 18, 22, 29-30. What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem?
Answer:
In line 3 the emergency flare is compared to blood pulsing out of an artery . Line 18 thereis so much blood that it collects like a pond, and streams like a river into the gutter. Line 22 a tourniquet is a compressing device used to control arterial circulation, their throats are so tight that not even blood can pass. The speaker compares seeing the accident to a wound one that will repeatedly open every time they remember what happened. All these metaphors have to do with blood, or rather the death due to blood loss. It is appropriate as the poem is about a car accident, car accidents are usually bloody.
4. What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the simlie in 24-27?
Answer:
The theme of the poem is how violent deaths shock us to the core, and how they make us question life and death, (violent deaths have larger impacts). The wreckage of the car is stuck/wrapped around the poles, like the cocoons of lotus (grasshoppers). They are empty because the lotus are all grown up, (in this case, the passengers are dead). This metaphor is used because you have the image of life and growing, then the image of a car wrapped around a pole, its passengers dead. The simile is comparing the witnesses to people just getting over their illnesses, and they have been out of touch with the world, their jokes are grim. They smile sickly, just trying to put up a good front. They warn with common sense to begin driving more carefully, they use grim jokes and unoriginal thoughts to get their points across. The witnesses are incredibly shaken (deranged).
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