Analyzing Miller Williams 'The Book'

The poem The Book by Miller Williams is a morbid yet sorrowful poem illustrating the ignorance of mankind. A man picks up a random book and writes his whole life in it, years later he takes the book to a bookbinder who then informs the man that its made out of human flesh. It’s then that the readers find out the ghoulish theme crescendoing upon this poem, underlining the tragedy of mankind's ignorance.
Following the narrative of this poem can cause confusion to many, Miller often switches from narrator to first person in efforts to engage the readers, the switching of nerative is also a way to pass off blame. Miller starts off the poem with first person saying “I held it in my hands while he told me the story”, then the second stanza says “He …show more content…
There's many hidden words that foreshadow the book itself, making it seem like there's something wrong with it from the very beginning of the poem; for example when Miller said, “ I held it in my hands while he told the story. He had found it in a fallen bunker, a book for notes with all the pages blank.”, a fallen bunker is mostly taken as a sign of previous war or destruction, meaning that death was near. Finding the book there just bolds out the book to have ties with death, many readers comprehend the foreshadowing when the book is revealed to made out of human skin.
Remorse came instantly as he learned the true material of the book, which underlines his tragic ignorance. Not knowing that the book was made out of human skin changed his whole perception about the book, “I stared at the changing book and a horror grew, I stared and a horror grew, which was, which is, how beautiful it was until I knew.”, furthermore one can conclude that all his memories, feelings, and secrets that he once wrote down in that book ar now tainted because of his unknowing