On “Complete Destruction,” “Willow poem,” and “The Desolate Field”

In “Complete Destruction” and “Willow poem,” William Carlos Williams uses the

literary devices irony and personification to reveal the theme of death is inescapable. In the

first poem, “Willow poem” by William Carlos Williams, personification is used to illustrate

the idea of unwilling to die. The poet begins this poem with the weather that is at the end of

summer, and the setting of a willow that is located beside the river. In this poem, three main

subjects are written which are a willow, leaves, and a river. Willow leaves are used as

personification to illustrate the comparison between human and nature. The poet states that,

“as if loath to let go” (9). In general, if color of leaves changes, they are going to come off the

tree very soon. According to this poem, leaves are unwilling to fall down from the tree even

though their color turns to red, orange, and brown. Similar to humans, they become older and

the skin turns to wrinkle​.​ In addition, personification is also used to describe the feeling of

leaves compared to human’s thought. In line 12, the poet states that, “oblivious to winter.” In

“Willow poem,” the term “winter” does not mean the weather, but it is the representation of

lifelessness. For leaves, they insight that they are going to certainly defoliate in one day, but

they do not focus every single second when they are going to fall down to the ground, as well

as human, all people know they cannot live forever. However, people do not recognise or

focus when they will die. Sometimes they even forget about it. That day comes, all humans,

and plants die spontaneously. The quote is stated that, “the last to let go and fall” (13).

Although humans are reluctant and afraid to stop breathing, they have no way to escape

death. At the end, leaves have to let themselves defoliate to the river or ground as well as

human that will pass away. Williams does not use only personification to show the

inevitability of death, but also uses irony in the next poem to express the idea of unavoidable

death.
 In “Complete Destruction” by William Carlos Williams, the poet uses irony to

emphasize his notion of none can evade from lifelessness, just like in the first poem. The

setting of this poem is an important part since it is described the weather that is frigid. He

uses irony to ridicule deaths of two various animals which are his cat and those fleas. In

“Complete Destruction,” the poet states that, “We buried the cat, / then took her box / and set

fire to it” (2-4). According to this poem, cat’s death is talked in the first stanza. In the second

stanza, Williams states fleas’ demises in line 6-8 that is “Those fleas that escaped / earth and

fire / died by the cold.” In this poem, actually, the poet has different choices of the weather to

decide to write into this poem, but he decides to illustrate the weather as icy day since it is a

representation of variety of tones and emotions that are death, sadness, and neutral due to the

fact that it is the day that his cat dies. Irony is used to show the comparison of demise

between his cat and those fleas. Cat dies because it is time it is supposed to die, maybe, it is

because the cat is very old, so it is buried by its owner. It is ordinary that cat’s skin has fleas

sticking to it. During burning the cat, those fleas can receive heat from fire, then they walk

out from cat due to the fact that it is a common sense that they have to get out of the place

where it is dangerous in order to protect themselves from danger. However, they do not

recognise that the weather is too cold for them to survive. Therefore, they die because of

coldness. As a consequence, these two quotes show that the animal dies because of its age, on

the other hand, for another animals, even though they are trying to run away from death, at

the end, they still die. The next, Williams also uses imagery to view the idea of loneliness

caused by death.

In “The Desolate Field” by William Carlos Williams, the poet expresses mortality of

plant by using imagery, just like in the first and second poem. He begins this poem by

describing the picture of the sky to express the gloominess of the place as well as the
extensive field and the gray sky. It is the feeling of being lonely in an extremely big place.

Williams states that, “In the tall, dried grasses” (5). According to this poem, the word “dried

grasses” is the representation of death. The poet shows that even grasses also have no ability

to get away from demise. As there is no longer the bright green color of the grasses anymore

since it has become brown and bended. This also represents nothing in the world is immortal,

and they will eventually disappear. To conclude, all humans, animals, and plants are unable

to escape death.
 My favorite girl group

Watching k-pop’s videos on

youtube all day and night.

My favorite band is Blackpink.

I am addicted to it.

I am addicted

to it. I am

addicted to it.

You can see it by

looking at my happy face

I can’t stop smiling

I’m in the happy world.

Addicted

Since my friend opened songs,

it was 2 years ago

I am addicted to it.
Reflection:

My inspiration of my pastiche is the poem named, “To a Poor Old Woman.” The

relationship between mine and Williams’ poem is the structures consisting of stanzas, lines,

and word count. My pastiche has equal number of stanzas as Williams’ poem that have four

stanzas. The first stanza is disparate from others stanza which has only three lines. Other

three stanzas are the same which has four lines. My writing is also created to have the exact

same amount of word count in each line, most of which are five words, but some are four

words. In the second stanza, the poet intends to repeat the sentence for three times by using

repetition working as literary device, and in each time, the various endings of each sentence

form different meanings to the readers. Therefore, my desire is to write the exact same

structure as his second stanza to emphasize how much I am addicted to Blackpink.

My objective of choosing this poem to be inspiration to write the pastiche is to show

that it is untrue that only valuable things can satisfy people’s desire. For some people, their

happiness can be created by ordinary things. To expand this idea, in the poem “To a Poor Old

Woman,” this woman can be pleased by simplicity which is a plum. Therefore, watching

Blackpink can help me relax myself.

It is surprised me that after I wrote this pastiche, it reminds me that I have been their

fan for two years. I enjoy writing this pastiche because I can express my feeling of loving this

girl group. I also enjoy the second stanza which is favorite stanza of pastiche. Since it is the

same sentence, but it can create difference of its meaning.

However, it is a little bit hard to control the amount of word count to not be more than

four or five words in each line, and I also have to decide which part I will write about it. At

the end, I decide to write the beginning of how I become their fan in the last stanza because it

is the beginning of my best memory.