Elizabeth BishopSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayPink Dog (Rio de Janeiro) The sun is shining and the sky is blue. Umbrellas dress the beach in all shades. Naked, you trot across the avenue. Oh, I've never seen a dog so naked! Naked and pink, without a single hair... Surprised, the passers-by step back and look. Of course, they are deathly afraid of rabies. You are not crazy; you have scabies, but you look smart. Where are your babies? (A breastfeeding mother, next to those dangling pacifiers.) In which slum have you hidden them, poor female dog, While you go begging, living on your intelligence? Didn't you know that? This has been in all the newspapers, To solve this problem, how do they treat beggars? If they do this to someone begging, drugged, drunk or sober, with or without legs, what would they do to sick four-legged dogs? In cafes and on sidewalk corners, the joke goes around that all beggars who can afford it now wear life jackets. In your condition, you couldn't even float, let alone paddle with your dog. Now look, the practical and sensible solution is to wear a fantasy. Tonight you just can't afford to be an eyesore... But no one will ever see a dog with mascara this time of year. Ash Wednesday will come but the carnival is here. What sambas can you dance? What will you wear? They say that the degenerate Carnival, the radios, the Americans or something like that, completely ruined it. They just talk. Carnival is always wonderful! A shaved dog wouldn't look good. Get dressed! Dress up and dance at Carnival! Costume unveiling: the female body in "Pink Dog" by Elizabeth Bishop In "Pink Dog", Elizabeth Bishop narrates a one-sided dialogue between the poetic speaker and a naked dog, shaved with a fleshy pink and prancing for food. Although the dog's bold behavior captures the gaze of the speaker and a crowd of onlookers, it is the speaker's recounting of the event and all its intricacies that transforms the poem from a mildly comic tableau into serious symbolism. From curiosity to threats and eventually advice, the speaker's narrative elucidates cultural issues with the nude female figure. Serving as a dehumanized representation of the human body, the brazenly pregnant dog undermines the speaker's cultural sensibilities, hinting at society's closely guarded view of the female form while calling into question its intelligence and legitimacy. Bishop's dog may appear to viewers as a common, mangy street animal; however, for the speaker and in the poem, it is a devolved representation of the female body. Throughout the poem, the speaker confuses the mutt's identities as a dog and a woman. The title “Pink Dog” is one of the first constitutions of this combination. By describing the dog as pink, the speaker attributes not only the literal color to the animal but also the important connotation of pink as an essential shade of femininity. The speaker's constant preoccupation with the feminine aspects of the dog's form reinforces this evidence. For example, there is the vulgar description of her "dangling pacifiers" and the reference to the dog as a "poor female dog". These two choices of diction are even brought to the forefront of the poem by syntactic and rhythmic details. The first is highlighted by the poem's parentheses alone. The latter is found in a verse which breaks with the typical iambs of the poem in favor of an anapestic triple measure; further aggravating thisa metrical and rhythmic anomaly, “poor female dog” receives a double stress which disrupts the already distinct meter. “Bitch” is also a close rhyme between “pacifiers” and “spirit” and it comes after a completed stress group, forcing her to stand in her own group, standing in all her grotesque glory. The speaker also shows no hesitation in placing the dog in uniquely human contexts, thus creating more evidence of the dog's personification as an embodiment of the female form. For example, the speaker likens the dog to a human beggar, suggesting that he will receive the same punishment—or perhaps even worse—for his actions as all ordinary "idiots, paralytics, and parasites" or "anyone who begs." This similarity in punishment reflects a perceived character similarity between dog and human. Even calling the dog "naked" in the first and second stanzas is an act of personification, because it attributes human diction to the animal; dogs are not called “naked”, only humans – dogs are always “naked”. " The speaker also suggests that the dog would fit in better if he dressed for carnival: "the practical, sensible solution is to wear a fancy dress" and "no one will ever see a dog with mascara at this time of the year. "But wearing a costume would only help a person fit in. Wearing makeup would only help a real woman. To a dog, these actions would only heighten the grotesqueness, only debase it further. Yet why does the speaker extend such advice? The answer is that the act of dressing up is not for the dog, but rather for what the dog represents: a female body, its nudity and its femininity. Consider the dog's initial introduction: “Naked, you trot across the avenue. » At this point, its bodily form is ambiguous; it is impossible to determine whether it is an animal, a woman, or something specific which first catches the speaker's eye. , it is not the shape of this creature but the fact that it is "naked" and boldly "trotting" These two words also acquire increased stature by the initial inversion of the line which breaks away from the iambic pentameter. from the first two lines; “naked” undergoes a first stress and a first hard blow; two offbeats build to a climax at the “trot,” making its stress and rhythm more powerful. This motif is even reproduced in the fifth line with “Naked and pink,” a repetition of diction and form that also intensifies the dog’s naked femininity. Because of this emphasis, it is clear that the speaker's advice to "dress up" is a call to hide the display of the naked female body and not just that of a hairless dog. The figure is disturbing. The speaker wishes to cover and contain it. To this end, the speaker's entire dialogue can be taken as an indication of the extent to which society is captured and uncomfortable with exposed femininity. In the second stanza this is beautifully illustrated by: “Surprised, the passers-by step back and look at [the dog].” The spectators are both attracted and repelled by the sight, as is the speaker, who devotes great attention to the dog, although this consideration is motivated by concern. Indeed, the lengthy and abstruse threats of beggars "swinging in sewage" and advice about carnival costumes can be interpreted as misguided attempts to relieve the speaker's anxiety over the uncovered female form; in addressing the dog's poverty and fashion sense, the speaker deftly avoids what is truly an "eyesore": the astonishingly naked body, the cheeky pink, the,.