"In the Waiting Room" is a narrative of a small personal event, made large by being put into verse. I won't claim to get it entirely, but it is certainly a "coming of age" story. Or, a coming into awareness. The speaker is retelling the time when she was a child of nearly 7 years realizing that she is a human being, and a woman.
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
These lines clearly point to what the child is realizing: a connection between herself, her timid aunt, those in the waiting room, the cannibals of Polynesia, the women with horrifying breasts, etc. It is a frightening moment for the speaker, feeling as if she were her aunt, realizing she is not, that she is somebody entirely separate but entirely a part of the human race and the female gender. In the end of the moment, the world settles and the speaker recognizes that it is still the 5th of February 1918, although it no longer seems like the same day. She is in fact older than when she woke up or even entered the waiting room--significantly older with self-awareness.
2 comments:
I like how you referred to "The Waiting Room" as a sort of "coming into awareness", similar as to "coming of age". It put the girl's thoughts and views into perspective on how she saw herself compared to the rest of the waiting room, her aunt, and people in general. Your post helped me derive more meaning from the poem and made it more applicable to every day life for me.
Perhaps you enjoy the fact that you share her name :) But seriously, I kind of skipped over this poem because we spent so much time talking about "The Fish." Thanks for bringing it back into my awareness. It really is a great example of one of those growing-up moments.
Post a Comment