James Dickey's The Leap

James Dickey, a famous twentieth-century southern poet, is known for his blend of visionary and humanistic style of writing that cannot be satisfied with basic surface knowledge. Being a war veteran, a lot of his works focus on American History, however one of his least recognizable poems “The Leap”, is about the memory of a childhood friend. Although the actual leap is implied, the focal point is the symbolism of two objects or actions within the poem as a representation of something of more importance.
The first, and most likely the most prominent significance is the leap Jane McNaughton takes. As the reader first begins to read the poem, it is a simple moment before dance class. In the second line the reader may not even acknowledge what …show more content…
Jane simply jumped to “see if she could reach it.”(19) Jane in fact reaches the decorations and also reaches the narrators memory indefinitely. The leap Jane takes at this moment is also symbolic of how she matured ahead of the others, “Whatever it proves in a new dress, a new womanhood, among the boys…”(23) This stanza focuses on the fact that Jane was always ahead of everyone else. She was “wide-mouth, eager to prove whatever it proves when you leap”(23), is another example of the symbolic meaning of the leap throughout the entire …show more content…
The speaker sees the paper chain as his connections between him and events in his past. He tells Jane to "hang on to that ring I made for you"(51) in the hopes that if she will hang on he will be able to hang on to the memory as well. He is throwing himself in the past and shielding his self from the horrible reality. The paper chain and the leap before dance class is his connection not only to Jane, but to the happiness of his