True Emotions In Carolyn Kizer's Bitch

1016 Words3 Pages

Individuals may or may not go through a situation where they would enjoy nothing more than to yell, scream, or even fight another person for something that he or she said or did. It is challenging to hold back such intense emotions, but it is the wise thing to do in order to avoid further conflict. In Carolyn Kizer’s “Bitch”, the speaker demonstrates holding back her emotions in front of her ex-lover. It was tough for her to do so because she wanted him to understand how she felt. Overall, Kizer establishes the importance of being the better person by holding back one’s feelings in order to avoid further consequences. She illustrates this through portraying the speaker’s true emotions, revealing information of her ex-lover, and showing how the speaker carries herself on the outside. Primarily, Carolyn Kizer utilizes a speaker in her poem …show more content…

In poetry, the speaker is not necessarily the author but is the voice of the poem that conveys his or her situations or emotions. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker meets her ex lover “after all these years” (Kizer line 1). Kizer uses an extended metaphor of the speaker’s inner self as a dog, more specifically, a female dog, which explains the title, “Bitch”. The speaker’s inner bitch reveals emotions of being wounded, furious, and affectionate towards her former lover all at once. The speaker is miserable in how she has to hold back the dog. She says, “as I drag you off by the scruff” (Line 33). This gives the reader the imagery of a dog being pulled away from something the dog aspired to do, illustrating the miserable and wounded tone. The speaker is

Open Document