Poetry Explication #2
“I Am a Rock” by Paul Simon is a poem about keeping others out in order to protect oneself. To avoid pain people will often put up barriers to stop others who could hurt them from getting too close to them. This Fear of being hurt can lead people to become solitary and act as if they have no feelings, when really they have just built a barrier so great that no emotion or person can get in and no emotion can be released. The person in this poem has likely been hurt by the people they trusted most and in turn decided that love and trust was something he should avoid seeking from others. However, this mindset may only be temporary before they begin to sucumb to human emotion again. To show this they use word choice, imagery…show more content… He compared himself to a rock and an island, compares distancing himself from others as a fortress and calls books and poetry his shields. In the poem the lines, “I am a rock/ I am an island,” (lines 7-8, 15-16, 23-24,31-32) are used in every stanza.This metaphor is him referring to how he is strong like a rock and isolated like an island. The final two lines in the poem build on these two lines, turning into, “And a rock feels no pain/ And an island never cries,” (line 33-34). These final lines show that he wishes to be like these inanimate masses so that he may feel no pain and never show any sign of emotion. The lines, “I’ve built walls,/ A fortress deep and mighty,/ That none may penetrate.” (lines 8-10) are used to explain how he’s distanced himself from others and does not want people to get close to him, so he’s put up a wall between himself and others. Finally, there are the lines, “I have books/ And my poetry to protect me;/ I am shielded in my armour,” (lines 22-24). These are a metaphor for how he can hide behind books and poems to distance himself from others. This is because it is much easier to avoid contact with others if you have your nose in a book, it is a shield that can be carried around brought up whenever it is needed. Using metaphors and other imagery is a very strong method to bring across the point within “I am a rock” and helps to describe the author's true…show more content… Words such as, “In a deep and dark December,” (line 2) or, “A fortress, steep and mighty/ That none may penetrate,” (lines 10-11) are used in the poem and show his isolation and coldness. By using these words he is able to get across that he feels both cold and alone. However, in all of his comparisons, it is a short term situation. He speaks of things such as December, or being in the womb; both of these are, however, temporary. This could hint at the idea of his own isolation being only a temporary choice and will not be a long term situation. By using word choice we understand on a better level that while he is feeling cold and isolated it is not a permanent situation for
