“Bishop's ‘The Colder the Air,’” in The Explicator, Vol. 46, No. 4, Summer, 1988, pp. 35-37.

In Elizabeth Bishop's “The Colder the Air,” the protagonist's femininity is mentioned twelve times: nine times as “her,” twice as “she,” but only once does she receive a specific title. In the second line, she is referred to as “this huntress” Before concluding she is an Annie Oakley protégée in boots and a fringed hunting coat, we should consider the significance of the abundant ambiguous references. Bishop seems to be devising a riddle here, a poem of the “What am I?” genre. Upon close examination of the poem's subject, it appears that the huntress of the poem is not even a human, but a thermometer.

Inside a thermometer, there are only two directions to move: up or down. These extremes are achieveable, though often the mercury comfortably avoids these limits. Much is made of the mercury rising to and past the explosion level, spewing a geyser of red, but little is made of the extreme that is undoubtedly better for the thermometer: the colored liquid sinking in cold weather. Especially in cartoons and charity fund drive posters, the upper level attracts more attention. But with this personification, “the colder the air,” the better.

With only a dual course to travel (with perhaps a third state of stasis), the thermometer's aim is made much easier. The title's comparative implies that the winter air might grow colder, increasing the chance that she will hit the lower register of the gauge. The poet comments that “everywhere / her game is sure,” and the reference in the third stanza says she will consult only atmosphere. Everywhere the thermometer might turn for an indication of cool weather, she would find it, not only to the air itself, but to what first appear to be birds but are really ice-locked boats. “The least of us could do the same” suggests that her choice of one of the two directions is no difficult task. Perhaps there is even envy of such a simple decision.

But what is it she aims at? And how does she aim? Her aim is “perfect,” her “glance” has a “narrow gallery,” and she has at least one “eye.” She does have the ability of sight, although she doesn't need to use it, for her “level weapon needs no sight,” and “everywhere / her game is sure.” Nor does she consult “time nor circumstance.” And all the words for vision—“sight,” “glance,” “aim” (twice) and even “shot”—are nouns rather than verbs. The nominalization of the words implies they are things already existent rather than actions. Some of the puns, such as “sight,” may detract from the possible active overtone of “seeing.” Again, she does not need to aim but merely call upon the ambience for her result; she feels rather than looks.

Because we see a single eye, we might assume she has only one. That eye contains “the target-center,” which “is equally her aim and will.” In a human's eye, this might be construed as the bull's-eye's reflection or the focusing of the eye upon the target. Yet here, a more literal meaning seems to be at work: her eye is the goal of her aiming, the point she is striving for. Indeed, if we consider the design of a thermometer, with the round bulb as the eye, we can see that the eye can be both “her aim and will,” “will” being her desire or soul, the thermometer's source of life. Without the bulb (or what is in it), the thermometer cannot work for its single purpose, to make the mercury rise and fall. As the air gets colder, the mercury sinks away from the threatening explosion of the top toward a lower point of union in the bulb. For the thermometer, this complete introspection is not only a pleasant state but one that avoids annihilation.

The “level weapon” could easily be a gun barrel metaphor for the stem of glass. The inner mercury-filled capillary, a thin straight line, would appear to have the “perfect aim” the first line suggests. The word “level” rings an interesting note: Bishop's final published poem before her death, “Sonnet,” juxtaposes the images of a spirit level and a thermometer. Perhaps the two enclosed glass tubes were cross-referenced in the poet's mind.

“The narrow gallery of her glance,” bringing the eye back in, describes the measured scale of degrees. As “air's gallery” goes down, the mercury edges “identically” down in its own gallery: in other words, the things happening out in the world—the water freezing over—are elements of nature's scale of coldness, similar to the measured scale of the thermometer. The circumstances of the air show the poet that the thermometer will be edging down toward its goal.

However, with the poet's attention directed to the thermometer, the gauge itself seems to determine the cold weather, a cause and effect relationship where if the mercury would climb, the air would get warmer. Indeed, after the seventh line, there is no reference to the cold or to the scene, a surprisingly abstract passage for Bishop. But the thermometer's limited glance ignores such things as well: “She'll consult / not time nor circumstance.” The huntress does not need to know it is winter or that the scene before her sightless eye is frozen. Instead, “time's in her pocket,” for the huntress has time under control. She has frozen time: she has caused the poet not to watch a clock but to watch only the thermometer's numbers. Similar to the thermometer, the poet's main concern is the temperature of the air.

But of course the poet's vision cannot remain frozen. She must retreat from threatening stasis. This huntress will not rule the scene supreme, but must be upset, even if only in promise. The final two lines, delivered as an aside, say that the seasonal rule over the scene will return: the clock will fall into action, perhaps as the thermometer rises. Things will not be caught in this timelessness, but the changes of nature and of weather will replace her rule, and our gaze will adjust to another imposed medium once the circumstances change.

Like so many of Bishop's other poems, the focal object threatens to become the sole means to interpret the scene, almost a center of the universe. Since a thermometer is a human measure of nature, Bishop realizes the ultimate need to shun it. But prior to that final action, the metaphor for the thermometer gives the poet great opportunity to exercise her mind (where the poem's real action occurs).