The Shampoo Literary Devices

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“The Shampoo” by Elizabeth Bishop was written near the beginning of Bishop’s residence in Brazil and is a direct homage to her lover Lota. Bishop uses the mundane act of washing a loved one’s hair as the basis for a brilliant meditation on the nature and progression of time. In “The Shampoo” Elizabeth Bishop uses imagery, metaphor, and diction to compare the gradual movements in nature over time with the process of aging. Bishop draws a contrast between the process of aging and the timeless relationship she has with her partner.
The first stanza centers the poem in the specific observations Bishop makes in nature:
The still explosions on the rocks, the lichens, grow by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged …show more content…

“Since the heavens will attend” on the couple for as long as they wish, they are in control of their use of time. The largeness of the span of time through which the heavens will wait for humans is illustrated through the physical distance between “attend” and “as” with the first line break in the second stanza. The word “since” in this context means because. “Attend” can mean to be present, but in this poem it takes on an older connotation to mean to wait upon. Bishop uses these words to suggests that because the heavens will wait for them, they can decide to use time however they want-- choosing to be “precipitate” or “pragmatical”. The alliteration of her beloved’s characterization as “precipitate” and “pragmatical” makes it seem like the words are a pair and go together; on the contrary, they have opposite meanings. To be “precipitate” means to be impulsive, hasty, or abrupt. On the other hand, “pragmatic” means sensible, rational, and advocating behavior that is based more on practical consequences than on theory. Bishop echoes the idea that time is amenable regardless of how we choose to spend it in the phrase “Time is / nothing if not amenable”. The idiom “nothing if not” means that if time is anything at all it is, then it agreeable to how we use it. Furthermore, the importance of time is reinforced with the enjambment at the end of the fifth line of this stanza and its capitalization. “Time”, as an agent of aging, is usually the enemy of love; however, in this case it is redeeming and allows the idea of growing older together with her partner to be less startling and more

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