Ambiguity And Uncertainty In The Illiterate By William Meredith

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In William Meredith’s Sonnet “The Illiterate” the poet evokes numerous feelings of ambiguity and uncertainty in his poem. In doing so, Meredith not only helps the reader capture the sense of emotion that the character was feeling when he received the letter, but encompasses his personal viewpoint of life as well. Similar to the Meredith, the character in the poem was inexperienced in romantic love, and was basically at a loss for words when he received a letter from a loved one. The character then faces a dilemma: not only was it the first letter that he ever received, but he was illiterate and couldn’t understand the content in the letter. The poem relates to Meredith’s life because he was gay, which was disapproved during his time period …show more content…

While many sonnets may include robust and difficult diction in them, Meredith chose to use basic words. Meredith chose this strategy in his poem because he wanted to help the reader clearly understand the mindset of the character. Meredith may have also chosen to use basic words because character in the poem was illiterate, and this use of basic words would accentuate the character’s simplicity. Perhaps Meredith was also trying to show a connection between literacy and the thinking process. Meredith may have been implying that literacy leads to a more complex mindset. Additionally, when someone is very emotional and uncertain, they are often at a loss for words and tend to use basic diction to get their ideas across. Meredith’s use of basic words helps encompass this idea, while also allowing the reader to notice irregularities in the sonnet. In addition to Meredith’s use of basic words, he also evokes ambiguity in the poem by having “almost no description, no sense-details” in many of his lines (298). He does this by using statements such as “and you might think,” and “what would you call” (Lines 3 and 13). While these statements show the ambiguous nature of the poem, it also allows the reader to see the illiterate side of the writer as …show more content…

In the poem, the character would often use words that had double meanings. In lines 6 and 7 of the poem, it stated that the character was “afraid of what it means and ashamed because he has no other means”. I believe that Meredith chooses words with double meanings to emphasize how the character has approaches to the letter. While the words sound the same, they each carry a different avenue of approach. Similarly, the character in the book is torn between what emotion he has toward the contents in the letter he received. Since the character is illiterate, he has no ability to determine his true feelings for the loved one. Additionally, this use of repetitive words in the poem also shows the lack of diction by the character. When words are repeated, it typically tells someone that they are either confused or have a weak vocabulary. Since it is implied that the man had a small lexicon because of his illiteracy, the poem reveals his ideas in a simplistic and repetitive wording

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