The Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop
The Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop
The �Filling Station’ by Elizabeth Bishop is a very interesting poem. It is fairly short and devoid of strong emotions. To give a brief synopsis of the poem, a third person omniscient narrator is describing a father and his �several quick and saucy sons’ running a filling station. She moves from describing them to describing the station itself, complete with furniture, a �dirty dog’ and plants. The poem then changes tone to reflection of why the station is the way it is, and is concluded by a very poignant line, “Somebody loves us all.” Something important to be noted is that there is no female figure present in the family, otherwise complete with a father, sons and a pet.
Bishop uses a variety of literary elements in her poem such as repetition, irony, personification, syntax and imagery. She uses these elements to show that even in the face of hard working life, a caring family exists. In this family, she hails the mother figure as the one who takes care of all. The rich imagery of the poem successfully paints a vivid picture of the filling station. This is done mainly in the first half of the poem, in the first two stanzas. Here, there are three important images constructed by Bishop. The first of these is dirt; in the first line of the poem, Bishop writes, “Oh, but it is dirty!” This is followed by �black translucency’ in line 5, �dirty’ monkey suit in line 2 of the second stanza and �dirty dog’ in the last line of the third stanza. Imagery of oil is also present in the first half of the poem, especially in the first stanza. Bishop writes, “- this little filling station, oil-soaked, oil permeated”, give us the image of a gas station dripping in oil. The second stanza continues with describing the monkey suit as �oil soaked’ and the sons as �greasy’. Lastly, the image of dullness and dreariness is prevalent throughout the poem. In the first stanza, Bishop gives the filling station an atmosphere of �disturbing, over-all black translucency.’ A cement porch and �crushed’ wickerwork are described in the third stanza as well. Finally, the station is described as having only one note of color and a big dim doily heavy with gray crochet. Basically, the image conjured is not pleasant by any means. It is important because the crushed wickerwork, dirty dog and the big, dim doily and laboring father and sons show signs of a hard working family possibly immersed in poverty.
Each of the four symbols is recurring and brings attention to them. The first one is the filling station which describes as �oil-soaked, oil-permeated’. The oiliness underlines the dullness of the station which has already been elaborated on. The filling station repeated in a few instances, and most importantly, parenthetically in the second stanza where Bishop says, (it’s a family filling station). This makes the reader wonder about the importance of both family and filling station. An object also harked upon is the doily, a usually hand woven ornamental mat. It is described as big and dim, and parenthetically as, (Embroidered in daisy stitch with marguerites, I think, and heavy with gray crochet). A plant is also a symbol in the poem; a �big hirsute begonia’ is present beside the doily. These symbols, namely the filling station, family, the doily and the plant as a whole have the effect of creating a world. The plant is a form of nature, the doily is a man-made object, the family is a representative group of people and the filling station is the place where all these different factors exist. The importance of the creation of the world is that the message of the poem can be extended to the whole world. Now we must wonder why Bishop has included all of these and specifically decided to elaborate on them.
The last two stanzas of the poem bring a twist to the poem. The narrator enters a period of reflection. This begins with series of questions. The second to last stanza begins with the lines, “Why the extraneous plant? Why the taboret? Why, oh why, the doily?” These are questions that the reader has probably been asking himself to this point. It would be natural to wonder about the presence of a dog, furniture, a doily and a plant at a greasy filling station, run by a family,