A Bastard Peace

Thesis

• William Carlos Williams uses Imagism to depict a poor community with a single man who retains his pride.

Our interpretation• People are trapped “woven-wire fence topped

with jagged ends”• People are living in poverty• Perspective from the outside looking in.• People do not have jobs, and kids only go to

school. “12 o’clock blows but nobody goes other than kids from school”

• There are very few people out “No other traffic or like to be.

• The time frame of this poem was from 1906-1938 and it connects with the time of the great depression and that has a lot to do with the emptiness of the world in the poem

Sound & Structure• Its divided into 4 line stanzas • Stanzas begin with capital letters-enjambment• Rhythm-couplet “12 o’clock blows but nobody

goes… Side by..butterfly” (3rd stanza)• There are a lot of breaks to emphasize the

symbolic meanings behind the symbols. (white butterfly, washed out street, waving a whip etc…)

• End-stopped “Gid ap! No other traffic or like to be.” (line is ended with a exclamation mark and period)

• Alliteration- first stanza shows it “-Where a heavy Woven-Wire fence”

• The poem has flow, a lot of pauses and it is fragmented.

Language & Style• The numbers in the poem are important “Three

cracked houses, a willow two chickens … 12 o’clock”• Juxtaposition- stylistics techniques ( talks about how a

jagged fence encloses a long river, this can also relate to how they are trapped)

• Negative energy is given off in the beginning and the poem concludes in a positive energy.

• Pattern off language “The sun parches still the parched grass.

• Tone of the poem is sarcastic because he makes it seem like a peaceful place when in reality it is the opposite of what he says.

Imagery

• The title is A Bastard Peace • A lot of images that represent peace are

mentioned throughout the poem “A white butterfly, a dandelion in bloom”

• This is ironic because the poem is not peaceful as it seems, it’s the opposite of it because it talks about the hard ship that people endured during the Great Depression.

• This contributes to the sarcastic tone in the poem.

Class Activity

• Think of a specific movie, book, article, etc., that closely relates to the poem A Bastard Peace and explain why.

• On your white boards, draw and describe how you think this setting would look like.