Dusting

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1986

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Memory as an Escape

The poem centers upon the idea of memory as an escape and liberation. The first stanza of “Dusting” takes place in the present moment of the solarium, and the rest of the poem takes place almost entirely in Beulah’s memory. Dusting the wood is a repetitive motion. Beulah revitalizes the wood, and the continued motion of her hand makes the dark wood even darker. The effects of Beulah’s actions are boring—the wood will continue to get darker and shinier—and the action is equally dull—she will perform the same motion over and over until she moves on to the next dusty spot and does it all over again. The intrusive question, “What / was his name, that / silly boy at the fair” (Lines 10-12) is a welcome distraction. Remembering the name of the boy gives Beulah something to occupy her time with. It also presents a small challenge, unlike cleaning. Successfully dusting all the surfaces in the solarium means little to Beulah. She does that without thinking. Remembering the name, however, will be exciting.

Recapturing her memories is a kind of freedom. As she wracks her brain, Beulah gets caught in the weeds of other memories, such as the night she saved the fish from freezing. Trekking through those memories brings her closer to her answer. She thinks of the name Michael, then refuses it, ordering herself to keep searching for “something finer” (Line 18). A search through memory can be treacherous. In stanza four, Beulah gets caught in darkness. She repeats “before” (Lines 27, 31, 35) three times, mentally circling the drain of what comes after the carnival boy. Finding the name gets her out of that dark place and back into the light. In this way, memory is not only an escape from reality, but an escape from other, more painful memories.

The Loss of Girlhood Innocence

Memories of girlhood are bittersweet for Beulah. It was a more innocent, “finer” (Line 18) season in her life when she could flirt and play carnival games, kiss boys, and go out to dances. The syntax in stanza two captures this change in mood:

[…] his name, that

silly boy at the fair with

the rifle booth? And his kiss and

the clear bowl with one bright

fish, rippling wound! (Lines 11-15).

The list in Lines 13-15 is playful and associative, moving from detail to detail. The repeated word “and” feels breathless, like a child telling a story who cannot get the words out fast enough. Charged punctuation surrounds this list. The question mark in Line 13 moves the poem into the world of possibility, out of the certainty of affirmative statements. The exclamation point after “wound” (Line 15) elevates the drama of the scene into the all-consuming passion of young love and heartbreak.

For a young girl, all feelings are equally big, be they good or bad. In contrast to the magical night at the fair stands the horror of finding the fish frozen in his bowl. Beulah sprang into action: she “rushed” (Line 24) him to the warm stove. Despite the circumstances, Beulah maintains hope that the fish will somehow make it, as evidenced by the fact that she waited and “watched / as the locket of ice / dissolved” (Lines 25-27). Her memories thaw her sense of self and help her recapture a time of her life when she felt freer, allowing her to momentarily reinhabit her younger years.

Beulah remembers the end of her girlhood and innocence as a traumatic event. She stopped being a carefree girl when she became a wife. She ceased to be the subject of her own fate and became an object when her “Father gave her up / with her name” (Lines 31-32). Instead of communing with others at carnivals and dances, she is alone in the “wilderness” (Line 1) of the same repetitive work, day after day. The contrast between Beulah‘s colorful past and mundane present suggests that the loss of girlhood is the loss of something precious and irreplaceable for her.

The Domestic Sphere and Oppression

The domestic sphere is Beulah’s prison. She is “a bird in a gilded cage. She sings behind bars of domesticity” (Dove, Rita. Thomas and Beulah, by Rita Dove. Video Press, 1988. 29:55). The solarium is “a rage / of light” (Lines 4-5), a golden room that Beulah doesn’t physically leave in the course of the poem. Alone and performing a second-nature task, Beulah has a moment of contemplation. She dusts quietly, “patient among knicknacks” (Line 3), before diving into the past with all of her imaginative faculties. The search for Maurice’s name is a mentally stimulating journey and a physically soothing one. Dust strokes become “deep breath[s]” (Line 19). The light in the solarium changes quality, from raging wilderness to “canary in bloom” (Line 20).

The domestic sphere has not always been a prison for Beulah. The home of her past is a magical place. She comes home after a dance to find that the outside has come indoors, “the front door / blown open and the parlor / in snow” (Lines 21-24). Although the domestic sphere restricts her present life, it once had the potential for wonder. The difference now is that Beulah is a wife, and her life is confined to wifely duties and “women’s” work. In a way, memory itself has become Beulah’s home. It is the place where she feels happy and safe. Line 21 makes this analogy directly on the line through enjambment: “Wavy memory: home” (Line 21). Beulah’s predicament suggests that domesticity can be experienced as a force of oppression, especially in comparison to the freedom of her more carefree youth.