First Death in Nova Scotia
18 pages • 36-minute read
Elizabeth BishopFirst Death in Nova Scotia
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Themes
The Eeriness of Death
The poem’s title evokes mortality, with the poem engendering a sense of the uncanny. The speaker’s imagination creates a jarring scene. About the loon, the speaker says, “Since Uncle Arthur fired / a bullet into him / he hadn't said a word” (Lines 11-13). The three lines reflect the speaker’s strange logic. The loon, a bird, could never say “a word” (Line 13), yet the speaker presents the bird as articulate before and after their death. Though the bird is quiet now, its capacity for communication manifests. As the speaker notes, “He kept his own counsel” (Line 14). The bird maintains a dialogue with itself.
This sense of eeriness continues when the speaker’s mother tells the speaker, “Come and say good-bye / to your little cousin Arthur” (Lines 22-23). Presumably, the mother didn’t mean to suggest that the speaker could still talk to Arthur. However, the image of the verbal loon leaves open the possibility that the speaker and Arthur can have a verbal exchange. The speaker advances the haunting atmosphere when they bring Jack Frost to life, turning the symbolic Frost into a mortuary cosmetologist. The speaker says, “Jack Frost had dropped the brush / and left him white, forever” (Lines 39-40). Frost’s sudden disappearance reinforces his apparition-like status. White becomes a symbol of ghostliness, not just purity.
The uncanny nature of death presented by the poem makes it possible that Arthur can rise from his coffin and visit the “gracious royal couples” (Line 41). The speaker admits that such a journey would be harsh. They frame the idea as a question, making it more credible. Imagery adds to the sense of the uncanny. A prime example is Arthur “clutching his tiny lily / with his eyes shut up so tight / and the roads deep in snow” (Lines 48-50). The small cousin appears as an otherworldly creature, doggedly confronting the harsh, wintery elements, even as he reposes in his coffin.
Innocence and Defamiliarization
The word “first” appears in the title, evoking a sense of innocence. In the poem, innocence isn’t explicitly virtuous or morally pure but estranging. It produces alienation and a series of perplexing images of death.
The speaker embraces a childlike perspective. They detach themselves from adult norms and don’t perpetuate a familiar picture of death. Death is seen through the speaker’s naïve eyes: What’s ostensibly a typical house and funereal atmosphere becomes a fantastical otherworld. The bird grows human characteristics, and its table transforms into a “white, frozen lake” (Line 15). Arthur’s coffin becomes a “little frosted cake” (Line 28), and Arthur undergoes several transformations. At first, in the words of the speaker’s mother, he’s “little cousin Arthur” (Line 23). The speaker thinks of Arthur as “a doll” (Line 32). They allude to Arthur as the medieval legend of King Arthur when thinking of him being “the smallest page at court” (Line 46). Severed from the stable norms of adults, the childlike speaker rearranges identities and objects, presenting a surreal picture of death.
In “Art as Technique” (trans. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis, 1917), the 20th-century Russian literary theorist Victor Shklovsky argues that strange imagery is central to poetry. Shklovsky believes that the poet’s goal is to undercut “habituation” through unfamiliar images and that new depiction provides fresh perceptions. In other words, all poets must be innocent.
Bishop’s poem aligns with Shklovksy’s beliefs. Bishop takes a stock scene marking someone’s death and makes it uncanny. Her depiction of mortality prompts the reader to consider its unusual, otherworldly aspects. By defamiliarizing death, Bishop indicates that the reader doesn’t know what death is. Her renditions of Arthur and the loon suggest that death is perplexing—no one can genuinely grasp or fathom it.
A Lack of Emotion Surrounding Death
Beginning with the parlor, the cold atmosphere signals a lack of emotions. The atmosphere persists when the speaker sees the loon sitting on a “frozen lake” (Line 15) and turns Jack Frost into Arthur’s mortuary cosmetologist. The speaker doesn’t reveal any overt emotions. They act as a camera for the reader—dispassionately recording unfamiliar images.
The speaker’s mother has the speaker “say good-bye” (Line 22) to Arthur. The idiomatic diction makes the exchange a formality, not a representation of distinguished affection. Instead of encouraging emotions, the mother follows a script.
The other named adult, Uncle Arthur, advances the poem’s absence of warmth. Uncle Arthur comes across as cruel: He “fired / a bullet into” (Lines 11-12) the loon. The blunt, violent image turns Uncle Arthur into a murderer or harbinger of an apathetic death.
The lack of human feeling at the funeral creates a vacuum. The speaker fills the space by connecting the loon, their cousin Arthur, and the royals. Whiteness marks the loon and Arthur. When the speaker turns Arthur’s casket into a “little frosted cake” (Line 28), the loon “eye[s] it” (Line 29), implying a vulturelike desire to devour. The loon’s relationship with Arthur becomes predatory.
The speaker portrays the physically absent royals as “gracious” (Line 41), inviting Arthur to their “court” (Line 46). Though the royals are “warm” (Line 42), there’s no easy way for Arthur to reach them, with the “roads deep in snow” (Line 50). Sustainable emotional bonds evade both Arthur and the speaker. In their imagination, coldness and atomization remain.
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