Sharpios "auto Wreck": The Theme Of Death

Sharpio's "Auto Wreck": The Theme of Death

Few subjects can be discussed with more insightfulness and curiosity than death. The unpredictability and grimness of it are conveyed well in Karl

Shapiro's poem, "Auto Wreck". The poem starts with a description of an ambulance rushing to the scene of a crash, and hurriedly gathering up the victims and rushing them away. The aftermath of the police investigation that follows leaves the crowd gathered around the scene to explore privately and individually a range of feelings and emotions about the reality of death.

Shapiro's usage of imagery together with figurative language is a key element in getting the theme of death across to the reader. By bringing the scene of the accident to life and relaying the emotions of the spectators with language and several metaphors, the poem gains a realistic and sometimes transcendent effect.

In some places in the poem, the words can easily be taken literally to convey scenery or an emotion, but they can also be taken so as to make the reader think about possible higher meanings. The thoughtsexpressed in the poem help to suggest these other meanings by clearly stating what is being felt by the speaker and the crowd around the accident. By stating clearly and vividly the emotions of the scene, it is easy for the reader to identify the theme itself, and also to identify with it.

In the first stanza, the speaker describes the ambulance arriving on the scene more so than the actual scene itself. The ambulance is described using words such as "wings", "dips", and "floating", giving the impression of the hectic nature of its business at an accident. When the ambulance arrives and breaks through the crowd, "the doors leap open" to further convey the hurried state it's in. In line 5, as the ambulance passes the beacons and illuminated clocks, it gives the reader an obvious clue about setting. To take the words' meaning further, it can be argued that the illumination of the clocks and the emptying light in line 8 symbolize life itself as light in an otherwise dark situation. Also, the allusion to a heart by use of the words "pulsing",

"artery" and "beating" personify the ambulance as the new life giving support of the victims of the crash. ...

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... our physics with a sneer". Taking the meaning from these parts and the last lines of the poem takes the speaker and reader through the realization that death is unpredictable and thought provoking, knowing that it can happen in the worst way at any given time.

"Auto Wreck" deals with the complex subject of death by exposing the reader to the feelings of the speaker after witnessing a crash. The theme that death is unpredictable and grim is presented through these feelings. The stanzas are set up such that the steps from shock to realization of what death contains can be presented in order of occurence. The first stanza describes the ambulance coming to try to save the victims, and the second stanza deals with the immediate aftermath of the crash. These first two stanzas really create a background to the final stanza, which takes the reader through a range of emotions along with the speaker. The last stanza entirely is the perfect example of how the imagery and figurative language get these emotions across to the reader. In doing such, the theme is revealed very clearly and the reader can think to himself for whom the bell really tolls.