Epidermal Macabre Analysis

Indelicate is he who loathes

The aspect of his fleshy clothes, --

The flying fabric stitched on bone,

The vesture of the skeleton,

The garment neither fur nor hair,

The cloak of evil and despair,

The veil long violated by

Caresses of the hand and eye.

Yet such is my unseemliness:

I hate my epidermal dress,

The savage blood's obscenity,

The rags of my anatomy,

And willingly would I dispense

With false accouterments of sense,

To sleep immodestly, a most

Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

.: :.

Roethke at first seems to try and hide beneath the mask of a narrator's point of view, but then he switches to first person, making the poem slightly confessional. He feels that he is restricted in his body and desires to be rid of his flesh to live as a spirit, with no restrictions. Roethke feels that the body and flesh brings 'evil and despair' and that humans are savage and obscene. His skin is sin, and he wants to be rid of sin by ridding of his body and remaining alone as a spirit. Logically, he would have to die to be rid of his body, and he feels that as long as he is living, he will be sinful, so a dying would be a logical choice. This poem however, is not suicidal, for he does not want to die, but merely desires to sleep. With the mention of the adjectives 'incarnadine' and 'carnal', he indicates that he still wills to live, but somehow kill the sinful, dirty feeling that his body gives him. He recognizes that it is impossible to die and live simultaneously, and he feels the frustration of wanting something that is impossible to have.

| Posted on 2005-03-01 | by augee