Summary Of Sylla Of The Mississippi By Amelia Gorman

The work “Scylla of the Mississippi” by Amelia Gorman portrays a commentary on the cruelty regarding slavery by means of using the “Scylla” and Mississippi River as metaphors. As far as the method of presentation, it is a relatively short poem consisting of 14 lines; the work is nonetheless compressed with a greater meaning than its length suggests. The work consists of one stanza, and on the surface, the body of work story takes place in a county fair. In this fair, there is a witness to cream corn wrestling which encompasses violence. In relation to the violence, the witnesses are prone to be involved to the violence by remaining bystanders and not taking part to preserving peace and prosperity. Thus, the end of the poem states that monsters are made and bred in this world which provokes the safety of humanity but a detriment or human’s mere purpose on the planet.

The primary content is a critique on the reader for she refers to “you” (“you” meaning the reader) witnessing the perils going on in society. The work makes references to a “nautilus shell”, a “spiraling hole to a watery well”, and a “midway carousel” to illustrate that there is a pattern to the peril of divide occurring in a revolutionary cycle. Furthermore, Gorman also references that us, the readers, watch the “creamed corn wrestling” in awe without intervention which splits the two wrestlers in two. Thus, the world “gives birth to monsters” which states that entertaining the peril is the equivalent of being a monster in society. Overall, the Mississippi River which divides the U.S. also served as a mechanism for hatred towards African Americans in times of slavery in which the issue ripped the nation in half resulting in violence and