17 pages • 34-minute read
The Partial Explanation
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Hunger and the Human Desire for Relationship
If “The Partial Explanation” were compared to a work of art, it might be American artist Edward Hopper’s very famous “Nighthawks” (1942), a painting which depicts people sitting in a diner, together but also very much alone. The perspective is from outside the diner, looking in. In the case of “The Partial Explanation,” the speaker is inside, but perpetually aware of the cold street, bereft of passer-by, and of their own loneliness.
The need to eat universally human; it is a drive that must be appeased on a regular basis. Most cities, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, have a plethora of “[g]rimy little luncheonette[s]” (Line 3)—little dives serving inexpensive soup, sandwiches, and coffee. Ostensibly, these places are intended for a quick bite. However, as the reader of “The Partial Explanation” and an observer of “Nighthawks” can surmise, diners are also a place where people convene, and wait, and pass the time—both alone and in company. Diners are places to be alone in company too, as a place where one can be amongst others, but bear no responsibility for interacting with them unless they choose to do so. There is no imperative to interact, only an abstract opportunity if one wishes.
The “[g]rimy little luncheonette” (Line 3) is an interesting choice of setting for a poem about loneliness. It represents a concept gone wrong in many ways: It is a place to find nourishment, and yet nourishment can be withheld by a long wait; it is a place to be amongst people, except when the streets are empty and everyone else, besides the lone patron, an inattentive waiter, and a cook or two, are at home or otherwise absent. In the case of “The Partial Explanation,” the embodiment of the public eating establishment only serves to underscore a hunger that goes unappeased.
The Empty Street
At the end of the first stanza of “The Partial Explanation,” the reader follows the speaker’s line of attention from inside to outside to the “street” (Line 9).
The reader is made aware of “snow falling outside” (Line 4) before learning that it “[s]eems like it has grown darker” (Line 5). Perhaps the streetlights are coming on, or perhaps there is a greater contrast between the lights inside the diner and the late afternoon or early evening sky, seen through a window. The speaker has their “back” (Line 7) to the “kitchen door” (Line 6), behind which the waiter has ostensibly disappeared. In a home, the “kitchen” (Line 6) is often portrayed as a place of warmth and communion. Here the kitchen is through a “door” (Line 6), with the speaker’s “back” (Line 7) to it.
The speaker’s sights are on the “street” (Line 9), and it’s been a while, the speaker says, “[s]ince I last noticed / anyone pass” (Line 9). The emptiness of the “street” (Line 9) is eerie. If it is dusk in winter in a city, people might be rushing home to dinner or to meet other people after work. This poem imposes a quiet that falls over the entire scene, like a blanket of “snow” (Line 4). If this is an urban setting, it is unlikely quiet. It “has grown darker” (Line 5) between instances of perception: “Since I last heard” (Line 6), the speaker says, and “Since I last noticed” (Line 8). In this way the reader is ushered into the dreamscape—dimmer and more mysterious than before the speaker entered this space.
For whatever reason, the “street” (Line 9) is empty, and so the speaker’s attention returns to the interior space, where the speaker says: “A glass of ice-water / Keeps me company” (Lines 10-11). The world outside darkens, and, one can imagine, fades entirely from view as night approaches and the only visible entities are what sits, as the speaker says, “[a]t this table I chose myself” (Line 12).
Time in the Dreamscape
“Seems like a long time” (Line 1), the poem starts, immediately alerting the reader to the notion that the speaker does not have a clear concept of time. The reader will likely come to the poem with some idea of what it means to place an “order” (Line 2) and wait for food, whether it is a short interval or a lengthy one. The speaker seems distracted, first noting the griminess of the eatery, then moving their attention to “snow falling outside” (Line 4). There is no one else with whom to converse, no one to offer some stabilizing perspective on how quickly or slowly time is passing.
It appears to the speaker that “it has grown darker” (Line 5), but the difference must be subtle, since the speaker has no tangible way to judge. The speaker remembers hearing “the kitchen door” (Line 6), and noting a passing pedestrian, but is unsure of how long ago that was. Sensory perception is disjointed; what the speaker hears has no connection to what the speaker sees. Perhaps the “glass of ice-water” (Line 10) could provide some sense of time passing, as ice eventually melts, and a “glass” (Line 10) can sweat, but the speaker provides no indication of a change of status for the beverage that, the speaker says, “[k]eeps me company” (Line 11).
Everything in the “luncheonette” (Line 3) is in a suspended state, waiting for an “order’ (Line 2) to arrive, waiting for someone to “pass on the street” (Line 9), waiting for the “kitchen door” (Line 6) to swing open so that the speaker can catch a fragment of “the conversation / Of cooks” (Line 17-18). Time in the dreamscape is elastic and unknowable, not readily gauged. When time, which can take up so much of the waking person’s consciousness, is disengaged from perception, the void may fill with less analog concerns, such as “longing, / Incredible longing” (Lines 14-15). This is a relatable human emotion, and one that tends to make time slow or feel stretched out. When one feels emotional yearning, time can seem endless.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence