Nothing Entered Yet

Reading and Discussion on Genre + "This is Just to Say"

This is a discussion post on the poem “This is Just to Say”. In this poem, we were asked to identify the rhetorical situation as well as to discuss our thoughts about the poem. This response is the foundation of the Critical Reading Response because I touch on how the poem adheres to a confession. I also do a quick general analysis on the poem. However, my first interpretation on this poem is that the speaker was genuinely guilty about eating the plums. This was the beginning to unmasking the speaker’s true intentions.

I initially read the poem with the impression that the speaker felt guilt over his actions. The poem begins with the speaker declaring, "I have eaten the plums". With this abrupt beginning, the speaker suggests suspicion in being caught in a crime, he is confessing his actions. As the poem unfolds, the speaker admits "you were probably saving..", this implies that the speaker was fully aware that these were valuable plums since they were being saved. In despite of him displaying this awareness he also evokes remorse as he was able to consider the other person's feelings after his actions.  While reading this I thought of a time when I was looking forward to eating left overs and someone beat me to it, which allowed for me to think of the speaker as confessing over a crime of my food. He continues to demonstrate his guilt by stating "forgive me". However, later in the poem I grew skeptical of whether the speaker was guilty for eating the fruit or guilty for being caught. His use of words like "delicious" and "sweet" to describe the fruit shows pleasure in eating them. However, the speaker ends the poem describing the plums with "cold". The word "cold" could have the implication of being vain, associating the plums with corruption. Recall that rhetoric can be situated. By using words like "you" the author is directly speaking to the owner of the plums, or the person who was supposed to eat them.