Wallace Stevenss The Emperor of Ice-Cream Essay -- Stevens Ice Cream

W in allace Stevenss The Emperor of Ice-Cream The simply emperor moth is the emperor of ice-cream, Wallace Stevens writes in his meter The Emperor of Ice-Cream (8). This line proclaiming the ice-cream churchman as grave as an emperor is used metaphorically to describe the selfishness of pitying nature. One the surface, the poem is somewhat the wake of a poor, old womanhood. However, if the metaphors and symbols of the poem argon examined, the poems deeper message becomes apparent. The attenders of the wake, who construe human nature, are uninterested in the dead woman they are solo concerned with their own wants - eating ice-cream. Therefore, the emperor of ice-cream is truly the mourners emperor, for the ice-cream maker represents the power of human selfishness, a power present in all humans.Stevens creates nondescript characters, other than in their plainness, for Emperor, thus making them easy to give away with as general and typical people, who therefore exhibit typica l human nature. Furthering their regularity, the dead woman and her mourners are from a fairly low companionable status. Stevens writes, Let the wenches dawdle in such dress/ As they are used to wear, and let the boys/ Bring flowers in last months newspapers (4-6). The girls everyday dresses and the boys flowers confined in old newspapers are testaments to their plainness as well as their lack of wealth. Stevens says the dead woman has a dresser of deal,/ Lacking the third glass knobs (9-10). Her cheap dresser missing three of its knobs is another model of the near poverty and simplicity of the woman and her mourners. Stephens characters are simple and customary people thus, their actions represent the actions and urges of simple and normal human nature.The m... ...ourners directing the uncontaminating of the lamp probably onto the dead woman gives the impression that they find the dead woman somewhat interesting and important. However, these impressions love and interest are quickly revoked when reminded that the only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. In other words, personal pleasure is farther more important than duty.The Emperor of Ice-Cream begins and ends with the ice-cream maker, thus establishing him as the most important piece of the poem. The ice cream maker is the only emperor he is the only person, representing human desire, that can truly rule ones life. This power makes the only emperor...the emperor of ice-cream.Works CitedStevens, Wallace. The Emperor of Ice-Cream. Literature Reading, Thinking, Writing. Fourth Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston St. Martins, 1996.