BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature
Guides
Criticism & Essays Criticism &
Essays
Questions & Answers Questions &
Answers
Lesson Plans Lesson
Plans
My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help


The Alchemy of Day Study Guide

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
by Anne Hébert
About 21 pages (6,422 words)
The Alchemy of Day Summary

Bookmark and Share Know this work well? Help others and get FREE products!

Themes

Transformation

The poem's main theme is transformation. In the beginning, the poem talks about "that day," picking one day out of the multitude of days in the natural, daily cycle. This day, as the poem increasingly makes clear, is the day that precedes a new type of day, a day that explodes into being. This is a sharp contrast to the beginning of the poem, where Nature is depicted as a wounded beast, who submits to binding itself to a tree. The concept of binding is significant, because it implies that somebody is a prisoner, or at least does not have freedom of movement. This idea works well with the other concepts that Hébert develops in the poem, such as the use of sounds. In the beginning, all is silent. The Grecian urns placed on.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 511 words. This study guide contains 6,422 words (approx. 21 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our The Alchemy of Day Access Pass.

Ask any question on The Alchemy of Day and get it answered FAST!
Answer questions in BookRags Q&A and earn points toward
discounted or even FREE Study Guides and other BookRags products!
Learn more about BookRags Q&A
Copyrights
The Alchemy of Day from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.

Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags




About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy