Essay Analysis of a Lyric Poem by James Merrill Coursework (Coursework Sample)

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Essay Analysis of a Lyric Poem
James Merrill has used statistics, irony and allegory to convey his message in the poem ‘Casual Wear.’ In a new attempt to explain humans as statistics, the poet conveys tourism and terrorism in an unemotional way. The poem is constructed in a similar fashion to the modern, fast-paced media’s news where emotion is lost in the endless reel of affairs. The poem begins by describing two people, a male terrorist and female tourist. The poet concludes by ingeniously connecting the two seemingly unrelated individuals. The contrasting perspective used by the poet conveys the direness of the tourist’s death and the terrorist’s resolution.
The large part of the poem focuses on the “average terrorist” and “average tourist” (Merrill 1, 5). The tone of the person shifts sharply from the detached tone at the beginning to a personal and emotional conclusion. The shift in emotions and the shocking outcome stimulates the reader to think about the events of terror on a personal level. Unlike the contemporary media that reports the terror attacks as statistics with no personal emotions, the poet tries to show that the people who perish in the attacks are also human. The poet reveals the woman to be “wife” at the end of the poem, who had very low odds of “strolling past the embassy” (Merrill 12, 5). The poet uses symbols, irony and satire to criticize the events and people involved in the poem. The structure of the poem is also unique because the first two stanzas are independent of each other. They are like two different books that are harmonized by the third stanza.
The use of statistics gives the reader the actual, precise and measured statistics of the occurrence and involvement in a terror attack. The tourist was a typical woman in her fifties who was strolling along the embassy. The chances of her strolling in that place at the specific tie were 1 to 910, which shows that she was unlucky to be found in the place of the attack (Merrill 3). Most people walk and stroll around daily as they try to meet their life’s needs oblivious of the nature of the people around them. A tourist has travelled to a foreign place probably for the first and last time, so the coincidence is extremely exceptional that she travelled to the exact spot of the attack. The use of one hundred million screens shows that news of terror attacks spread far and wide, causing more emotional devastation than the actual physical deaths caused. However, the reader is left wondering the meaning of the numbers 2.3 that are used in the first line (Merrill 1). Therefore, as much as statistics can provide vivid descriptions, they might also blur the meanings intended by the poet.
The poem has widespread use of irony. The title is ironic from the happenings in the poems. The title gives an impression of practicality and comfort while the actual events demonstrate unforeseen implications with innocent casualties. The tourist wears expensive designer clothes in a foreign place. The average tourist has placed a lot of value in the clothes she wears. However, despite the fact that she is articulately dressed in “Ferdi Plinthbower” fashion, she does not escape the death caused by the terrorist who has no “use for trends” (Merrill 2, 6). The woman is wearing her best outfit the day she dies. Had she known that this would be her final day, the probability of making clothes her priority would have changed. The lives of the two are also different from the onset. The tourist had been married a few times while the terrorist was celibate. The age difference is also used by the poet to show the different pleasures that the two groups of people s...