The Explorer

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Recommended: Poem analysis

Christopher Columbus, one of the most well-known explorers, endeavoured to find a passage to India going west, but found the West Indies instead. He obviously did not find what he was looking for. Like Columbus, the man in Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “The Explorer”, does not find what he is looking for either. Brooks’ explorer attempts to find a quiet haven where he does not have to make any decisions, where all is peace. In this poem, Brooks employs figurative language, diction, and structure to demonstrate not only the man’s struggle for quiet, but also humanity’s ongoing search for peace. From the very first stanza, the reader encounters Brooks’ skill for using figurative language in her poem: “[T]he frayed inner want, the winding, the frayed hope Whose tatters he kept hunting through The din. A satin peace somewhere” (2-6). This extended metaphor likens the explorer’s desire for peace to an unravelling fabric. Once very beautiful, the satin, representing his want for quiet and calm, has worn down, and the man is left chasing a remnant of his former dream. Brooks also uses personification to show the power that inanimate objects hold over him. “A room of wily hush” eludes the man (7), and he hears “[t]he scream of nervous affairs” behind doors (13). The choices he fears to take “cried to be taken” (17). In the real world, rooms, affairs, and choices make no sound and have no human-like characteristics, but by giving them human attributes, Brooks makes them even more powerful and more personal than they ever could have been alone. They carry weight and meaning, just like in real life. Though rooms cannot be purposely deceitful and choices and affairs make no sound, these aspects of l... ... middle of paper ... ... “There were no bourns./There were no quiet rooms” (18-19). Unlike the rest of the poem, this stanza has two definite sentences, making for a more emphatic, choppy rhythm. This sudden shift, combined with the words in the stanza, show very clearly that the noise and the choices will never end and he will never find peace. It is frightening to think that this could be humanity’s fate. The man in the poem searches for an asylum from the world’s chaos, but only finds anxiety and disharmony. Like the man in the poem, humanity faces a never-ending search for a sanctuary from disquiet and decisions. Mankind fears the choices to be made and pines for tranquility. Brooks presents this struggle in her poem, “The Explorer”, and uses figurative language, diction, and structure to expound on this. Mankind’s search, however, is less lyrical and not narrated with poetic devices.

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