Point of View

The sonnet is written from a third-person limited point of view; however, eight lines in, focus shifts from an objective description of the Statue of Liberty to Statue's own impassioned words. While her speech is rendered with quotation marks, it still reads as markedly different from the first eight lines, drawing the reader closer to the action and providing them with a more immediate picture of Lady Liberty's ideological program. This shift in perspective is also important insofar as it intensifies the tone of the sonnet. From a lyrical, descriptive opening rich in classical allusion, we are plunged all at once into the powerful rhetoric of an eloquent American spokeswoman. The statue puts in words what earlier lines could only gracefully gesture at. By changing forms halfway through, the sonnet also neatly mirrors its historical period of ubiquitous uncertainty. Lazarus composed "The New Colossus" in...