Analysis Of Isabella Gardner's Poem 'Part Of The Darkness'

Isabella Gardner’s “Part of the Darkness” is an interesting poem that contains many different sets of words tied together by a common sound. The theme of the poem is humans versus nature. Some of the poetic tools utilized to communicate this theme include alliteration, assonance, and rhyme.

The first tool used in “Part of the Darkness” is alliteration. This tool helps demonstrate the clashing characteristics between the humans and nature in the poem. The first example of alliteration comes in the very first line. It shows the author’s expectations of what the bear will be like: “fiercely, free, feasting on honey and wildwood fruits”. In this line, the tool is used to connect the words describing the humans’ impression of what the wild bear will be like. Another display of alliteration is in the line that says “that burgeoned broken crates and bulging paper bags and emptied cans of beer”.
Rhyme in this poem is used to connect two related lines: one about nature and one about people. One occurrence of rhyme in the poem is when “dim” is used to describe how people left the headlights on in their cars, and the word “rim” tells where the people stand in relation to the grove in order to watch the bear. This shows the clash of the darkness of nature with the brightness of the human’s headlights. A second instance of rhyme in the story is found in the description of the looks on the tourist’s faces with the word “gaped” when they see the “bear-shaped” shadow. At this point, the bear frightens the people almost as if they are surprised that they actually saw him. A final illustration of rhyme used to emphasize the theme is the use of the word “groveled” to define the bear’s pathetic behavior, and the utilization of the word “raveled” to depict the bear digging through the trash left there by people. These examples all show connection between humans and nature and the clashing that occurs between