Analysis of Thanksgiving Dinner
Home for the holiday from New Orleans,
with Mother and Father at the tiny
drop leaf, brown rosewood, mahogany
table with the gold, grinning claw feet;
Father, choler- red-in the-face, short-
sleeved white shirt and cane, says the blessing
as Mother brings in the turkey and cranberry.
Then Mother asks, " Won't you have more ?' and father :
"Do you think Moll Flanders was a whore ?"
(I have suffered and bleached my hair blond. )
I am silent before their replies.
Mother sighs. "I can scarce speak to her."
And Father, too, quotes Shakespeare. (I am thin
as paper and the rose- colored bowl
of blown glass sitting on the silver stand,
half- filled with water. )
" How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
to have a thankless daughter "
Scheme | XAAXXXABX XXBXXXB XB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011100 1100101010 11110100 101011011 10110011 111011010 11010010010 11011111010 111110101 111001111 111001101 101111110 010111111 110001101 1111010101 11110 1101010111 1101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 791 |
Words | 138 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 7, 2 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 196 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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"Thanksgiving Dinner" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/47041/thanksgiving-dinner>.
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