1. The title, Editing the Prairies, can provoke many feelings in a reader. For instance, a reader who lives in the prairies may wonder what editing needs to be done to their great home. A person living on the prairies knows the wonders of the lands: from the land’s beautiful sunsets, to the hard work their ancestors performed to build the prairies into what they are today. A reader may think there is nothing to edit about the prairies, for in its entirety, it is perfect and in no need for alterations. However, a reader may not wonder if the poem is about what is wrong with the prairies, but perhaps what is right with them. The poem could be concerning how those living on the land edited the area to make it such a beautiful …show more content…
Within the poem, the main character acts as an antagonist against the prairies, which are presumed the protagonist. The antagonist narrator patronizes the prairies and describes all the traits that some viewers may see as imperfections. As well, the poem has many instances where imagery is used to create visual in the reader’s mind. One example would be when the narrator describes how the prairies are so bare, that the only thing filling in the empty space is the sky. This is a very visual representation of the prairies, and evokes the reader to picture the scenery where the land and sky meet. In addition, the poem climaxes when the narrator decides to reject the prairies, as if it was a novel trying to be published. This denouement reveals the meaning and setting of the poem, as well as why the narrator is picking apart the …show more content…
The tone of Editing the Prairies is a melancholy demeaning tone. The narrator describes what seems like a perfect landscape, but pulls it apart, aspect by aspect, to patronize every wonderful trait the land possesses. The narrator references the neverending land to be too boring due to its flat mirage, and therefore it is unfit and needs to be changed. The narrator does not care what the prairies are but rather is only interested in what would make them better. The reason this is demeaning is because to a person who lives on the prairies, the aspects the narrator picks apart are the traits that make the prairies beautiful in their own way; therefore, the narrator is doing the editing without reason to the reader, which makes the tone melancholy as