An Essay on Insomnia

After reading "Insomnia" again I went back to my work from that semester and found an essay I wrote on it and decided to post it here because I really feel that poem is so moving and deserves an extra look. Plus I claimed this was a literary blog, so here's a literary critique.

The speaker of “Insomnia” by Elizabeth Bishop, is a person who is lying awake at night, thinking of an unrequited love. The speaker is watching the moon as reflected in her mirror. Interestingly it is only in the last line of the poem that the speaker addresses herself by using the word, “me” and then the reader can see that the speaker is identifying with the moon. This late use of personal pronouns is fairly common in Bishop’s poems. Because the moon is female it makes the reader view the speaker as female. The poem uses very basic diction, but the images and figures of speech are much more complex than the language used would seem. There are perfectly rhyming lines, but they do not seem to fit into any pattern, it is similar to a sonnet in that the last two lines rhyme, however, there are 18 lines not the usual 14 for a sonnet. The rhyming is subtle enough that the language of the poem still seems very natural and not overly poetical.
The speaker personifies the moon in the first lines of the poem, “The moon in the bureau mirror / looks out a million miles / (and perhaps with pride, at herself, / but she never, never smiles)” (1-4). The speaker is thinking that the moon is not just a reflection but a female who is admiring herself in the mirror. The moon has become another woman, with pride, but she does not smile, she is not happy. The moon, by being up at night with the speaker, connects the poem with the title, “Insomnia” either the moon or the speaker, or both are suffering from it. “far and away beyond sleep, or / perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.” (5-6). The fact that the speaker and the moon are both up at night, when most others presumably are not gives the speaker a sense of alliance with the moon.
“By the Universe deserted, / she'd tell it to go to hell,” (8-9). Here, because the moon is alone at night, like the speaker, the speaker sees it as abandoned by the universe. This is more personification of the moon and the whole universe. The moon was clearly not abandoned, it is out at night for the same reason the sun is visible during the day, so it is more likely that the speaker was actually abandoned by someone and is personifying the moon to be in a similar position as herself. The speaker is imagining in these lines that the moon is a scorned woman, but that she is strong and the type of woman who would tell the person, or in this case the universe to go to hell. By putting “she’d” in italics the way she does, the speaker is implying that others, most likely herself, would not be strong enough to do the same to someone who had abandoned them.
The speaker then imagines, “and she'd find a body of water, / or a mirror, on which to dwell.” (10-11). This image is similar to the beginning lines where the moon is looking at her reflection. The last part of these lines is the most interesting, the speaker thinks the moon would find something reflecting to, “dwell” on. She would not go out and meet someone new; she would focus on her own image. This makes the reader wonder, what is the alternative? What is the speaker doing, if not telling whoever it is that wronged her to go to hell? She imagines the moon being strong enough to tell someone off and then be satisfied on her own; perhaps something she does not feel herself capable of doing.
Imagery of reflection and inversion play a large role in this poem. The last two lines of the second stanza and the whole third stanza are the speaker imagining a different sort of world. It is a sort of dream world where things are backwards. Mirror images are inverted so the moon looking at itself in the mirror is seeing itself reversed. The speaker says:
So wrap up care in a cobweb
and drop it down the well

into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me. (11-18).

The last line of the second stanza is enjambed with the third stanza, connecting them. The speaker is addressing a person in these lines, presumably the person who left her. These last lines explain why the speaker wants to moon to be a woman abandoned, because the speaker is in love with someone who does not love her—except in this mirror image world. It is interesting however; that the speaker is asking the person to send his cares into that alternate world. The rest of these lines describe a dream place where everything is backwards. “where we stay awake all night,” (16) this line is not referring to the insomnia the speaker is suffering from now, but rather the two people staying awake all night, together. This is the first time in the poem someone other than the moon is addressed, but it is not until the last line that the speaker mentions herself. Although the speaker does not directly refer to herself throughout the poem she is still a very large presence throughout.
This poem uses simple words, or diction, rhyme and personification to create complex imagery that is both profound and beautiful.