Symbolism and Imagery in “Michiko Dead”

Jack Gilbert’s comparative poem “Michiko Dead” is a complex simile that compares the

emotional burden of grief to being forced to lift a heavy object for the rest of one’s life. Written in

blank verse and strewn with stark images evoking the extreme pain Gilbert is feeling over the

death of his wife, “Michiko Dead” shows how a tragic event like death follows someone for the

rest of their life. Through the use of his vivid imagery and comparison, Gilbert shows that death

is one of the most traumatic things that can happen and how it troubles a person for the rest of

their life.

Gilbert develops an elaborate simile in the poem of comparing his pain from the loss of

Michiko to a man carrying a heavy box. He does this to create a painful experience that the

reader is likely familiar with and to therefore allow the reader to empathize with him.. He says,

“he moves the hands forward, hooking them/ on the corners” to show the man’s struggle with

the box. The man tries to get better control of the box and reduce the pain that way but he is

unsuccessful. The box is analogous to what a burden Michiko’s death is on the author’s

emotional consciousness and how much pain he is constantly feeling. He tries to move on

emotionally, but the burden remains and still weighs down on him regardless of what he does.

This simile is highly effective as it portrays to the reader very clearly the pain that Gilbert is

feeling. It also shows how the pain is more than just emotional and weighs down on him

physically. By allowing the reader to understand the pain through his effective simile with the

man and the box, Gilbert allows the reader to empathize with his burden.

Gilbert makes extensive use of visual and sensory imagery in the poem to display to the

reader just how real and burdensome his pain is. He directly compares his emotional pain to

physical pain to show that emotions can have just as strong an impact on someone and harm

them just as equally. Gilbert says that “blood drains out of the arm” of the man to create an

especially graphic image of how lifting the box drains the life out of his body. Michiko’s death did
the same to Gilbert emotionally. Gilbert is describing how he has been pushed down so hard by

her death that he is drained of all energy and is rethinking what it really means to live and be

emotionally free. He then goes to say the man was “pulling the weight against his chest” to

signify how Michiko’s death weighs down on his own heart. Gilbert is trying to meld physical and

emotional pain and make the reader think that there is no difference, that emotions can affect

someone as deeply as physical pain. Gilbert uses this graphic imagery to further allow the

reader to empathize with his pain by recalling on their own experiences with that kind of physical

burden.

Gilbert develops the simile of the box further to say that grief is something that never

goes away and must be dealt with for the entirety of one’s life. The man will never be able to put

the box down and is stuck with it and its pain for the rest of his life. Gilbert says that the man’s

“arm goes numb” to show how the pain can be forgotten about and mentally rejected, but it has

not really gone away. His mind is only attempting to move on by rejecting it but it will always still

be there lurking. The man has only become accustomed to the pain at this point and just

accepted that he is stuck with it forever. The fact that it never goes away is further emphasized

when Gilbert says the man “can go on without ever putting the box down”. This shows the box,

like the author’s grief over the death of Michiko, does not ever go away. Grief follows someone

for the rest of their life. Even if the pain is numbed through time, it never really goes away and

its memory will always be present to haunt the carrier.

“Michiko Dead” is an extended simile comparing the grief over a loved ones death to

being forced to eternally carry a heavy object. Gilbert makes a connection between physical and

emotional pain in this simile to better describe how severe his grief is. He uses graphic imagery

and his effective simile to show the reader that grief is a mix of emotions that someone is stuck

with for the rest of their life, even after they think they have moved on.
Exploration of Grief in “The Gaffe”

C.K. Williams’ narrative poem, “The Gaffe”, is a strained depiction of how grief tortures

people and the fear they have of confronting their grief. Written in blank verse and strewn with

images evoking the difficulty and discomfort the narrator faces talking about his gaffe involving a

question around a friend’s death, “The Gaffe” shows how sensitive people are about death and

how the narrator’s embarrassment over his question has followed him for so many years.

Though the use of his manipulation of tone and language, Williams leads the reader to conclude

that death is a difficult subject that society has forced us to be afraid of and not accept its harsh

realities.

Williams uses a strained tone to show how the memory has haunted him for all of his life

and how such traumatic experiences, especially those involving death, can affect people. It is

apparent from the tone of the poem that the narrator has trouble talking about his gaffe. He

wants to come to terms with the event and not let it bother him so much, but he has great

difficulty in doing that. The strained and depressive tone becomes clear with lines like “rakes me

with such not trivial shame for minor” and others especially in the first section of the poem.

Williams uses words like rake, shame, and minor to better illustrate the narrator’s discomfort

with the subject. This incident, the gaffe, has followed the narrator throughout his life and he has

been unable to forget about it since his childhood. The gaffe also involving the subject of death

shows how it was especially traumatic as death is a difficult topic that people do not like to

discuss due to the innate fear people have of death.

Williams’ use of flustered and confused language in the first section shows how the

memory of this incident has had a major impact on the narrator and how he views the idea of

death and its accompanying grief. The way he uses pronouns in the first few lines shows how

harshly the narrator is judging himself and his extreme embarrassment of his actions. He says,

“If that someone who’s me yet not me yet who judges me is always with me”. The complex use
of pronouns suggests the narrator figuratively looking at himself in a mirror and making

observations of his past actions. The memory of the incident has tortured him and refuses to go

away. Williams is commenting on how strongly people can judge themselves and how an

incident like this can haunt someone for their entire life. When Williams describes the mother

later in the poem he says, “Was her someone in her kinder to her … as mine did, still does, me”.

Williams uses the pronouns in a flustered way again to show how difficult the situation is for the

narrator and how he wonders whether people are judging themselves the same way he does to

himself. Talking about death has become a difficult situation for the narrator after he made his

gaffe and it shows what how much social stigma there is around the subject itself.

Williams’ comments in the poem on how people have an unreasonable fear of death and

how it has become a social stigma to even mention it during people’s grieving process. He says

that the mother was “guessing [whether] grief someday ends”. She desperately wants her

grieving to be over and is wondering whether it finally is, but she then immediately feels

extremely guilty that she could move on from her son’s death. When the narrator asks the other

children when it is okay to accept someone’s death, people look at him horrified. He asked

himself if someone could “not just … accuse [him], but … explain“ why everyone reacted the

way they did to his question. The narrator was genuinely curious about grief and what kind of

emotional effect it has on people. Williams is showing how people are unrealistically expected to

be have an infinite amount of grief and that it is unacceptable to talk about someone’s death in

front of people grieving for their death.

“The Gaffe” shows how difficult it is to talk about death and how people have difficulty

coming to terms with it. The narrator has remembered this incident for a long time and it is still

difficult for him to talk about it. Williams uses a strained tone and excessive use of pronouns to

show the confusion and embarrassment faced by the narrator over his gaffe. He does this to
show how people have an unreasonable fear of death and are unwilling to accept its blunt

nature.