Poem Analysis Of 'If' By E. Cummings

Could you imagine dirt actually being clean or a globe in the shape of a square? Dirt wouldn’t really be dirt then, nor a globe really a globe. If you have read the poem “If” by E. E. Cummings, then you may remember theses crazy allusions. Cummings is not trying to confuse your brain, however, he is simply making an observation on possibilities of the future or the notion of there is no perfect world. My perspective of the poem is that if things were different, then we wouldn’t be who we are and in a perfect world, humans will just find wrong in it anyway. There are only three stanzas in this poem and they are all very similar, but in the first stanza Cummings uses simpler and common examples to address the concept and reflects those on himself. Cummings uses words such as “freckles, measles, lies,” so that we can understand what he is saying (1-2). Moreover, he pauses in the middle of the stanza, as well as the third stanza, with a dash and his attitude starts from being “optimistic about a life based on the good, then switches perspective to be blunt towards change” ("Final Reflection"). He concludes this stanza saying, “For in such a sad plight/ I wouldn’t be I,” emphasizing that he is disappointed that he wouldn’t be the man he is now in an ideal world (5-6). Continuing on to the second stanza, Cummings begins to dig a …show more content…
Almost understanding his point living in an ideal world, he completely seals it by saying, “Yet they’d all despair,” indicating that humans would find destruction in a perfectly built world no matter how amazing it may seem (16). By finishing the poem with the line “We wouldn’t be we,” he says that all of us would not appreciate true happiness if problems or wrong didn’t exist (18). That’s the main point, we want what we don’t have, but if we had that luxury of perfection, we wouldn’t be who we are nor be able to appreciate and love ourselves and what we are are blessed