In the poem, the reality revealed is that we will someday fade away from people and this world. But that the true beauty lies during the events in our lives and until the finale, we are the ones to hold the sweet, ripe “Persimmon,” a sacred and distinct “sun inside [each of us]… Golden [and] warm. ” Lie-Young Lee implements imagery and symbolism to underline the metamorphosis of the early life of the struggles of social placement of a young American Chinese boy to the deep passions of a young man.
Persimmons” teach us that even if we may go blind, Just like the speakers father in the poem, it comes to show that our experiences of life, that despite not everyone will appreciate, or understand fully, that it is something that will forever remain etched in our souls. At first the poem starts out a bit scattered. There were several pieces that did not seem to follow the time and meaning, but while seemingly scattered, his memories do in fact connect in several ways. As one specific device, most of his recollections involve the symbol of the Chinese fruit, persimmons.
The poem begins with an unpleasant memory from the speaker’s sixth grade classroom where he recalls being slapped on the head and ordered to “stand in the corner for not knowing the difference/between [the words] persimmon and precision”(3-5). Right at that moment the speaker’s attitude is that of confusion. In the first stanza, we learn that Mrs.. Walker was the speaker’s teacher in sixth grade: In sixth grade Mrs.. Walker Slapped the back of my head and made me stand in the corner for not knowing the difference between persimmon and precision. How to choose persimmons. This is precision. 1-6) To Mrs.. Walker, the point is simple; the young boy, whose native language is Chinese, simply cannot attain and grasp the elements of English. Clearly he confuses the words that are seen from Mrs.. Walker’s point of view to have nothing in common, but Poetry maybe only holds similar sounds and that is all. But in the boy’s min are connected in a way that Mrs.. Walker will never grasp without del particular literary device that Lee uses is the choice of enjambment “choose,” (6) which breaks the first stanza and draws attention to the and the process of making choices.
Although in the first stanza it is s beaker, as a child and as a student is stripped from the power to chi process and codes of the incident of his classroom assimilation, he r justifying his linguistic conflations of the words “persimmon and pre connecting the words through their similar sounds and by symbolic “How to choose/ persimmons. This is precision” (6-7) and “fight and yarn” (31). While Justifying the melting pot of his words, he also re-CLC demonstrating his command of the English language.
In the second Lee elaborates on the correct way of carefully selecting and eating a along with that it is affirmed that the speaker does in fact know the teens the two words. The speaker reveals his understanding of ” diction being used by Lee to describe how to pick out and eat a peers words “soft,” “sweet,” “sniff,” and “brown-spotted, are given to the fur it and transcending the physical sense of the Chinese fruit and trans an important element, and symbol. Whereas the character of Mrs.. N the category of the “teachers” that one may meet throughout life. Anyone: from a school teacher, a semester -long college peer, a rand society itself. However, these “teachers” not Judge one’s personality, ignorant. In defined terms; a person may be treated as a sheep, whew re the ones fenced in, not able to reach, see or feel further; they do survey into the deep and enigmatic waters of people, Self, and emote the boy’s mind. The teacher is not aware that his mind is full of differ world or emotions, and his rich culture.
The only thing they perceive may have a problem; that the boy has trouble with words, which in a but for him, the words that tend to “stick out of the page” for him are assimilations that they induce: soft and brown-spotted. Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one Will be fragrant. How to eat: Put the knife away, lay down the newspaper. Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat. Chew the skin, suck it, and swallow. Now, eat the meat of the fruit, so sweet, all of it, to the heart. Can Mrs..
Walker and anyone belonging to this pragmatic world even the world within him? To the speaker a persimmon is precision, beck the ability of perceiving a precise persimmon and the persimmon it by its existence; a soft fruit, the shape, the smell off ripe one is an has the talent to spot one and the proper knowledge of how to eat o -01 Ft-m 3-1 r. -x n Walker incorrectly prepares the persimmons for the class, as she it up” (41) as if she were “cutting up” this demonstrates her violate ultra of the speaker.
The poem takes on a dramatic turn at the third stanza, where the s forwards through time. Here the speaker describes the moment of experience with his lover. Here by Lee’s use of symbolism and con choice is significant because of specific time and place it is being moment, the speaker has forgotten his Chinese, this could repress problems of assimilation to have faded in the aspect of the triumph language. Although he has perhaps gained societal acceptance as American, he has also gravely lost, where his loss out wins his gain native language, the loss of his culture.
As a second interpretation when the speaker forgets about the “DeW’ and the fact that they a recalls the “Crickets: Chic chic” and that woo: [means] you and his total captivation in the moment, the moment when two lovers union, one perhaps forgets that fact of nakedness, because perhaps moment, one does not feel naked, because their significant other are all they need to feel covered, a moment were all barriers are b free comfortable in the bareness, where he even forgets the back playing.
By the use of symbolism, it is known that “Persimmon” is t and so acts as a metaphor of the love scene, focusing on the pass hat marks the speaker for life. In the ninth stanza, a new scene there is another shift in time, this time the speaker is a mature ad parents, but also revisiting old memories, that arouse ancient feel particular stanza, Lee’s use of vivid imagery is openly present, whew the speakers elderly father who has gone blind: …. 1 rummage, looking for something I lost…. I find a box…. Three paintings by my father: Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening. Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth. …. Which is this? …. Eh, the feel of the wolf tail on the silk, the strength, the tense pr iris…. Eyes closed. These I painted blind. Some things never leave a person: Scent of the hair of one you love, The texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight. (62-88). Concrete details allows has a great impact and effect on this paretic because it draws the reader in, allowing them to engage and become the feelings the poet is trying to transmit: the sight of the Hibiscus of the “cat’s preening” (75).
Although the speaker’s father has lost can still “see” the world. When a person goes blind, they are shut but the thing that stays with the person transcends the sense of vision; the smell, he texture, the weight of the persimmon that the father speaks of that will “never leave a person,” (85) that the feel off ripe persimmon in the palm will remain a part of you , Just like the speakers culture, his memories and experiences.
This could also represent an important shift in the poems tone, in that the speakers finally accepts his culture or art of reminiscing of familiar emotions, both like being “back home. ” His experiences, although not entirely positive, have helped him grow into the man he is now. Lie-Young Lee, by using sensory imagery and “precise” diction along with the informal stanza structure, reveals to the reader that, despite the speakers his bi- cultural past, he has now realized, through his experiences, that some of the most important things will not always be “visible” and he is at peace with his culture.
The obscurity of words that Lee demonstrates in this poem correlates with the obscure and that of which is not accepted in our materialistic, and practical world. But the bitter-sweet irony of it all is that at times, as soon as something alike marvelous feeling or thought is put into words, its mystical beauty may diminish. This poem is tot only a self contained piece of poetry. It is art, a ticket to see, witness, and feel between our and the poet’s inner world.
