Analysis Of Open All Night

The poem "Open All Night", by Mary Rose O'Reilley is a poem about life which is written in second person, which allows the reader to experience the story on a personal level, and depending on the reader get a different theme from it. It also challenges the reader's skill, and makes the story feel more fresh to read. "Open All Night" has a major theme about life. The theme that sex is a carnal desire.

The reader first finds out about the setting of the poem, which is in a motel off the interstate. The setting of the story helps uncover one of the themes. When people think of motels, they often times think about how a motel is a place that people go to have sex. A motel is cheap and discrete, so the odds of being caught in the act are slim. The second and third lines, both describe the motel. In the

second line the author uses both diction and visual imagery to describe the room as it was in the past.

"Once a confection, wallpaper pink, and flocked with floral bouquets." The choice of diction for the word confection, makes us think of a sweet delicacy of some sort. Along with the visual imagery of the room, which is pink and filled with flowers, makes us think that the room was beautiful in the past. This can be a reference to how sex was in the past, when you first experienced it. It was a beautiful and passion filled act. It could have been an act of love in the past.The following line uses olfactory imagery to describe how sex is now. "A musk of cigarettes, Shalimar, This-Bud's-For-You." The smell of the room is disgusting with the smell of cigarettes and beer, and fake with the scent of perfume. This is describing sex after its lost its true meaning. It eventually loses its thrill, the faces of your lover's become blurred, and the names become

forgotten in the throes of passion. Sex is dull and seems like a burden to you now. If there is no love and passion present during the act, then it's truly worthless. Line 4 uses personification to describe the overall feelings that you experience during it. "Some rooms hang on to things that were good at the time." The personification of the room hanging on is a metaphor of you trying to hold onto the past.

In the second stanza it goes more in-depth about the sexual situation. "You call from a place you thought you had left." This could be several different situations, depending on how you view the meaning of the apostrophe. "You" are being to talked to the entire poem, but who is talking to you. It could be somebody who cares for your well being. You might be trying to quit the one-night stands, but keep on returning to filthy hotel. They could be trying to get you back to normal. A spouse or ex-lover could be talking to you. They might know that you are in an affair, seeking to get that rush you need, and begging you to stop. The meaning of these lines can be different depending on who you think is doing the talking in the poem. In the next line personification helps delve deeper into the actual meaning. Using personification on the abstract notion of cleanliness, makes it seem like it's missing from you, as if it’s a part of you. When you shower and wash off the smell and act of the sexual activities, you regain that missing part of you. You become normal and whole again. Yet Lines 7-8 allude to the fact that no matter how hard you try to forget, you will always return to the motel room. There is no escape from the extensive reach of sexual desire. The title of the poem helps strengthen the idea of this. As a motel is being talked about, the reader can assume that the building that is "Open All Night." This makes it easier to go back to the motel room. Its always available to you, its your last resort, As long as the motel is there, the doubt will remain in your mind. The doubt which constantly whispers malicious thoughts of your return and how easy it would be to just give in and surrender to your basic primal instincts.

The final stanza begins with you in the motel room. Line 9-10 says "your fingers trace velvety paper, bald at the seam; so many men make this motion, trying to get a line out." These lines could be referring to you trying to restore the beauty to the motel room. You're tracing the velvety paper of the walls, once pink and beautiful, but now starting to fall off. So many people have tried to restore the beauty to the motel room, to go back into the past when everything was good, but all have failed. Lines 11 and 12 are the falling resolution of the poem. Personification helps delve into the line of "the air conditioner spits out the cold air" The air conditioner snaps you back to reality. It gets you out of the grasp of the false intoxication from the "America cans". The final line tells how the night always ends, and how the return to normalcy happens. The plastic from the mattress is like the border between both parts of your life it "pushes away." The part covered by the mattress is the good part, the unsoiled part. The part that is still stable. The part that is soiled is the part that is collapsing, the part which is mixed up in the war between your inner lust, and your morality. The plastic is there and will separate both parts of your life, until it tears and the facade collapses.

Sex itself is one of the most powerful forces in existence. It can win wars, make countries collapse, reveal the innermost darkest secrets of someone, break the strongest of wills, and even break the tenacious bonds of love. Nobody is fully immune. That is what makes it so powerful. It can take control of your life at any time and destroy the foundations of it. Though sex isn't always bad. It can be an act of beauty. It can be the most euphoric thing you will ever experience. It can create life. The only dangerous thing about sex is how much you let it control your life.