Discussion Topic
Analysis of Figures of Speech and Message in "Yet Do I Marvel"
Summary:
"Yet Do I Marvel" by Countee Cullen employs figures of speech such as metaphors, personification, and allusion, notably personifying God and referencing Sisyphus from Greek mythology. The poem explores the paradox of God's perceived cruelty versus his benevolence, as the speaker grapples with the irony of being a black poet commanded to "sing" amidst racial oppression. Despite questioning God's intentions, the speaker ultimately marvels at the complexity and magnificence of creation, balancing awe with the acknowledgment of injustice.
What figures of speech are used in the poem "Yet Do I Marvel?"
A figure of speech is a type of language that is not literal. In this case, the poem takes on many meanings. It is common to use figurative language like metaphors in a sonnet. This beautiful sonnet uses metaphors, personification, and allusion.
The strongest metaphor is that God is a person. God is personified, seen as stooping and having an “awful brain.” There is also an allusion to Sisyphus, a figure from Greek mythology. Humans are compared to Sisyphus, and their life is compared to “struggle up a never-ending stair.”
Cullen uses metaphor when describing how he tries to comprehend the word of God.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
The speaker describes his mind as a place and ideas as things that can literally be strewn around.
Another metaphor is in the last line.
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Another metaphor is in the last line.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
In this case, writing a poem is compared to singing. The poem and the song are both an expression of beauty.
What is the message of the poem "Yet Do I Marvel"?
This poem is about the seeming cruelty of God. Although the poem opens with the line, "I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind," by the end of the poem, after Cullen has listed a number of apparent injustices and flaws in God's creation, the reader must wonder as to the tone of that opening line. The poem closes with the speaker wondering why God would make him, a poet, black, and yet, "bid him sing."
This poem was published in 1925, during a period of particularly heated racial conflict in America, when lynchings were not uncommon, segregation was enforced, and the Klu Klux Klan was undergoing a revival encouraged by the release, in 1915, of the racist film, The Birth of a Nation.
With this in mind, the point that Cullen is making in the closing lines of the poem is that for a poet, whose passion and occupation is to express him or herself, to be born black in such a time as this, when black people were violently and systematically denied their freedom of expression, seems like a cruelly ironic decision on the part of God. The opening line, in which the speaker affirms that he does not doubt God's goodness, might now seem to be tinged with a degree of irony, or even sarcasm.
This view of the poem is supported by the repetition, in line 12, of the word "awful" to describe God's thoughts ("What awful brain") and actions ("His awful hand.") This word has a double meaning. On the one hand it is used here in its more archaic sense, to mean full of awe, or awe-inspiring. It is used in this sense too in the Bible. For example, from Hebrews 10:31, "It is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the ever-loving God," and from Thessalonians 2:8, "the awful splendour of His coming." In "Yet Do I Marvel," the word "awful" is also meant in its more common, modern, negative sense, meaning very bad, unpleasant and objectionable. Cullen means the word, I think, to carry both meanings in the poem. God's thoughts and actions are, or at least seem, at once awe-inspiring, but also bad, unpleasant and objectionable.
References
"Yet Do I Marvel" by Countee Cullen focuses on the wonder of God's creation and design by focusing on several examples along the way. Even though the speaker may not understand the purpose or meaning behind God's perfect design and Creation, he can still appreciate the world for being what it is. Through the examples like the mole and Sysyphus, the speaker attempts to explain how even though his own limited perception may not understand why or how God chooses to do things in the world, he can marvel at the magnificence of the world all the same. Ultimately, the speaker chooses admiration for God's creation over frustration and lack of understanding.