A Postcard From The Volcano Analysis

With every year and every day that passes nothing seems to change, we think and believe that everything is exactly the same from the year before. But as the years go by does anything actually remain the same? Do we still communicate the same way we did just yesterday or are we just aloof to the past/history? A Postcard from the Volcano by Wallace Stevens’s emphasis the importance of language, the importance of observing and remembering the people who have left a mark in what language is now. The poem mentions mansions, children, the bones left behind, the way things are seen and felt, and literate despair. Analyzing the deep feelings of despair the person is going through in the poem and looking at the imagery in it will prove the poems emphasis …show more content…
Stevens says, “We knew for long the mansion’s look / and what we said of it became.” What he means when he says, “we knew for long the mansion’s look” we can interpret this as to him speaking about his home, the home that will no longer be his when he’s gone, but for the following generation to come. They knew the mansion for long and have lived in it even longer, but one day they will no longer be there. The person is feeling hopeless with the thought of this. The second part says “And what we said of it became” what this means is that what he/she had previously believed would happen with the mansion in the future is now officially their reality. Meaning that all the fears they felt about the mansion is now happening. The fear they had was most likely the children being unaware and uncaring about the past in the mansion. They no longer occupy the mansion but now the children do and they have somehow forgotten about the all the past memories and past human beings living in it. This part of the poem is very interesting because we can understand further of what the person was feeling and thinking about the so called