Closed Essays: Daystar By Rita Dove

Closed Essay “Daystar”

In “Daystar,” Rita Dove uses imagery, language, and a Hyperbole to describe, a short moment in a life of a mother, who is struggling to have time to her self. Dove depicts a moment of rest, making the readers understand how short of time a mother really has to think about herself. The Language Rita Dove uses in the first stanza, sets the tone for struggling, however the tone does change. Language helps readers feel the way the mother does when she is stress-free versus worked. “She wanted little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door.” (1 - 3). Right into the poem readers become faced with words like; wanted, slumped, but. These words illustrate the debate wether or not, she should take a break. Then moving on to the second stanza; “So she lugged a chair behind the garage to sit out the children’s naps.” (2) Rita Dove uses the word lugged, confirming that the mother is tired from a hard days work. Dove could have easily used carried, toted, or moved. Instead she used a word that sounded difficult. However by the third stanza, readers gain a sense of peace from the language used. For example “Floating maple leaf.”(8) The language becomes soft and light as she describes scenes of what she sees during that one hour of peace. But again in stanzas four through five she

Why, building a palace.” And two in lines eighteen to twenty.“She would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers for an hour.” This is a depiction of how she felt when she was alone, though she was not in a palace. She felt like she was. If you were to build a place your basically building isolation from the wold. Usually palaces are big, well protected, and meant for important people who did not interacted with the chaos of the world. At that time she felt like she was important, she felt protected, all by herself. Therefore making a palace a perfect description of how she