The Life of the Party Hedonism in Wallace Stevenss The Emperor of Ice Cream - Literature Essay Samples

An event marked by sex and celebration, the wake in Wallace Stevenss The Emperor of Ice-Cream is inescapably bizarre. Though one might expect an air of sobriety, importance, or at the very least reflection to characterize a discussion of death, the poems language and content are instead suffused with an almost nonsensical air of pomp. An unnamed speaker acts as master of ceremonies, encouraging mourners to engage in behaviors more fit for a party than a funeral, while simultaneously scorning the lifeless corpse for the same sexual revelries. Further obscuring the poem is the odd refrain, The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Though many parts of Wallaces verse seem more concerned with clouding meaning than creating it, there is sense hiding beneath every line. Using contrasting sexual imagery to create a mockery of conventional grieving practices, Stevens describes a funeral that embraces life instead of lamenting death, and subsequently exposes the hypocrisy that stems from humanitys obsession with mortality. The first stanza of the poem describes a strangely exuberant scene of mourning that resembles a lusty celebration more than a wake. Right away, the speaker makes two demands that indicate the oddly convivial nature of the gathering; he demands that someone Call for the roller of big cigars and bid him whip / in kitchen cups concupiscent curds. In the Western world, cigars are generally acknoweldged as symbols of celebration revelers light them up at the birth of a baby, or following a lucrative business agreement; they are not often associated with death and mourning. The preparation of concupiscent curds is also at odds with the tenor of the event. Since concupiscent means something that is eagerly or sexually desirous, the custards being made are imbued with lust, essentially aphrodisiacal; apparently, the pursuit of sexual pleasure will not be delayed while the dead body is prepared for burial. The lasciviousness and color of the mus cular ones creamy dishes may also be a subtle allusion to certain intimate fluids a sexual vision supported by the mild phallic imagery of the big cigars. Heightening the sense of jovial merriment, the assonance of i sounds in bid him whip and the alliteration of c in kitchen cups concupiscent curds both impart a pleasing, rhythmic sweetness to the poem. The commands to the boys and girls in the first stanza also detract from the expected sobriety of a funeral by encouraging lively, sexual interactions. The speaker says to Let the wenches dawdle in such dress / As they are used to wear. By telling the women to retain their normal garments instead of donning the appropriately grave, black clothing usually required for such an event, the speaker slights the standard of funereal reverence. However, the odd wording of dress / As they are used to wear and the emphasis placed on that line by the poems sole use of rigid iambic pentameter points to a more active lampooning of the wake. Stevens phrasing of are used to wear is grammatically incorrect this should read: used to wearing. And his choice in diction (are used to over other words and phrasings such as often, typically, or wont) is equally curious. (Wont, because it upholds the current meter and syntax while creating a pleasant alliteration with wear, would be a wonderfully apt word.) The secondary meaning of another peculiar word choice, wenches (meaning lewd women or prostitutes), can explain Wallaces description of the womens clothing. When considered in the context of harlots or loose women, rather than maids or servants, dress / as they are used to wear plays off an admittedly derogatory conception of women. The line becomes a command that the women only wear their normal clothes the clothes in which they are routinely used but to act in their normal, sexual way, as well. Stevenss wenches are not alone in being prodded towards sexual interactions; the speaker also commands complimentary behav ior from the boys at the wake. The boys are called to Bring flowers in last months newspapers. The fact that these flowers are held in newspapers, and last months as well, rather than being bare or in more pleasantly decorative wrappings (as one typically imagines the flowers at funerals or wakes) suggests that these are an inappropriate contribution to the events. In fact, it seems that the flowers are not for the dead woman at all. The boys are actually following a different cultural convention; they are delivering ragtag street bouquets to their dates, the wenches who sit idly dawdling for their men. Like the concupiscent curds and the wenches dresses that they are used to wear, these flowers are symbols of and precursors to fun and courtship. Although they are out of place at this scene of death, they would fit in perfectly at a hedonistic celebration of life. While the first stanza applies lusty diction and rhythms to create an atmosphere of pleasure and revelry, the se cond half of the poem uses these same themes as fodder for contempt and scorn. The use of sexual imagery is steeped in negative connotations when the speaker describes the corpse. The dead womans feet are horny, suggesting that she empitomizes vulgar sexuality even after her life has ended. This crude criticism is heightened by the line break after they come a particularly crass allusion that implies that her feet are so sexually aroused that they approach orgasm even after death. That both of these insinuations are made using street-yard slang rather than the subtle intimations of the first stanza also speaks to the negative portrayal of sexuality in the poem. Shame is even found in death: the speaker calls for a sheet to be spread so as to cover her face. The fact that the sheet may not be long enough to cover both the corpses head and toes also suggests a continuation of her promiscuity; her body will not be properly covered in death, just as it was improperly exposed in l ife. In a final moment of indignity, the woman is reduced to a pun: she isdumb: without life, she is mute; while alive, she was stupid. While the wenches and boys of the first stanza were encouraged to act sexually, the dead woman is criticized for engaging in the exact same behaviors. Although this creates a conflicting view of sexuality in the text, the ambiguity is resolved by unpacking the obscure refrain at the end of each stanza. The first half concludes with the words Let be be finale of seem / The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream; the second reads, Let the lamp affix its beam / The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream. The two couplets possess multiple similarities that make them deserving of a joint comparison: they use the same rhyme; they have a similar syntactical structure; they conclude in exactly the same manner; the first lines are both imperatives beginning with Let; they are thematically linked. Interestingly, the first line of each couplet deals with the difficulty of assigning truth. Let be be finale of seem stresses the importance of objective, actual truth: be, as the finale of reality, reigns over the subjective perceptions of seem. Relying on an archetypical image, Let the lamp affix its beam is a metaphorical replication of the same idea: let truth be shown. Subsequently, both set up a verity contained in the next line, The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Yet, what is that truth? An emperor suggests a powerful sovereign considered superior even to a king. Ice-cream, however, is a dessert, not an empire or state; the emperor, then, must preside over what ice-cream represents: something sugary and delightful a vice, a delicacy that must be gobbled up before it melts. In the context of a poem focused on mortality, this delicacy must be the fading pleasures of life. The be and seem of life can then be considered as the first and second stanzas of the poem. The be is the truth in enjoying the mome nt, the lusty carousal of the wenches and boys who, through both physical copulation and hedonistic merriment, continue to cherish life. They proceed despite the seem, which embodies the looming specter of death that will lead to their derision, just as it does for the dead body. They continue because death may seem like the end, but the pleasure in life is the true finale. In his contrasting uses of sexual imagery, Stevens exposes the hypocrisy behind mans willingness to allow the end to change his outlook on the present in other words, the idiocy in letting death alter ones view of life. By placing the party before the wake, readers are forced to recognize the joy in life and question why it is tarnished by death. Though this message of carpe diem may appear inappropriate and nonsensical to some readers, Wallaces use of Christian rhetoric indicates just how seriously he treats this subject. The four apostrophic imperatives beginning with Let echo Gods commands at the b eginning of Genesis, but even the Lord, the Christian king of piousness and morality, is subject to the whims of the hedonistic emperor of ice cream. And so too is his religious dogmatism: the forceful Christian rhetoric employed by the speaker is so at odds with the poems message that it must be considered satire. After all, if the emperor is a good host, then he would want his guests to enjoy themselves at his party.