1. What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight? How do these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?
Shapiro evokes sound and sight through the description of the bell as “quick”, “soft”, and “silver”, the “beating, beating” like a heart, and the “dark…ruby flare.” These warning signs signify that a horrible accident has just occured.
2. On a literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have…?
The word mangled is used as a noun in casual way, which increases the effect of the word. The toll of the ambulence is symbolic of the tolling of a funeral bell. By using the phrase “terrible cargo,” the author dehumanizes the victims, adding to the overall horror. The rocking sensation of the ambulence is symbolic of a cradle rocking, a comforting action that is out of place in the poem and serves to ironically show how the victims cannot be comforted. The police, who are “composed”, are used to seeing these things, as opposed to the “deranged” witnesses.
3. Analyze the metaphors in lines 3, 18, 22, and 29-30. What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem?
The ambulence’s “pulsing” light in line 3 is a metaphor for the human heart pumping blood. In line 18, the policeman is seen using a bucket of water to wash the “pools of blood” into the gutter. In line 22, the witnesses throats are “tight as tourniquets,” which are devices that are used to limit or stop bloodflow. In line 29, the witnesses touch “a wound/That opens to our richest horror.” The witnesses refuse to leave the scene, and in doing so continue to let their emotional “wounds” bleed. The metaphors create a pattern of bleeding and blood, which parallels the action in the poem.
4. What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the simile in 24-27?
The theme is that sudden and meaningless death can make us question our own views about life. In lines 20-21, the cars are compared to “empty husks of locusts,” which seems to suggest that the victims have “molted” from their bodies in death. In lines 24-27, the witnesses are compared to “convalescents intimate and gauche.” Their smiles are “sickly” and they make “grim jokes.” The witnesses have been emotionally traumatized by this gruesome event, and the fears of mortality that they have worked so hard to repress come flying back to the surface.
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