Saturday, October 31, 2015

Please explain the implications of the last line of N. Scott Momaday's poem, "Simile."

This excellent poem doesn't actually tell us what the
event was that produced such a notable alteration in the behaviour between the speaker
and the person the poem is addressed to. However, from the central simile that governs
the poem, we can infer that some kind of argument has occurred between the two
characters, which has now meant that there is a distance between them and a wary sense
of impending danger. The speaker describes both himself and his audience as being like
"the deer" who know are very careful and tense, ready for any sign of danger and always
ready to flee:


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who walk in single
file


with heads high


with ears
forward


with eyes
watchful


with hooves always placed on firm
ground


in whose limbs there is latent
flight.



The last line of this
poem is particularly powerful, as your question suggests, by the reference to "latent
flight." The speaker deliberately chooses this image to end his poem, expressing the
constant readiness that both he and his audience now have to flee any sign of impending
danger or threat. Presumably we can infer that after some kind of argument, this couple
has now lost all sense of ease and expect some kind of renewal of anger or frustration,
which they are constantly ready for. The simile, reinforced by the last line, presents
them as being very skittish and ready to fly when necessary. All sense of trust has been
lost.

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