Dark Pines Under Water

Ali Syed

Mr. Vandervlist

ENGL 201

March 8, 2018

In “Dark Pines under Water,” Gwendolyn MacEwen communicates a forceful sense of the internal journey of the reader using landscape as imagery. This journey is deliberately clouded, as the destination is never defined. MacEwen only approaches the poem through indirect means by using the strong imagery and figurative language inherent in the landscape. The sound patterns help emphasize and heighten the message of conquering uncertainty. The imagery of sinking and a dream turning into a nightmare makes Gwendolyn MacEwen poem “Dark Pines Under Water” extraordinarily dark and mysterious. This imagery would lose much of its force without the support of McEwen’s use of metaphors, alliterations and end rhymes to emphasize the contrast between dreams and reality.

The poem is written in the second person, MacEwen constantly refers back to “you,” forcing the readers to insert themselves into the poem. The poem starts off with a metaphoric forest, “And you become a forest in a furtive lake” (MacEwen 2). This forest is submersed “in a furtive lake,” making the image unfamiliar and mysterious. It’s unfamiliar because there’s different ways to interpret the image such as if there are pines in the water, or if the reflections of pines are shown on the water. This creates uncertainty throughout the poem as the reader doesn’t know what to believe. MacEwen continues to create internal unease through the extended metaphor of the forest. “The dark pines of your mind reach downward” (3). Pine tree’s are usually

associated with upward growth, but the author is comparing consciousness to dark pines. The author is stating that the mind grows downward into a dark place creating a sinister tone with an image of an outside world. The stanza closes with a rhyming couplet emphasizing the strange nature of this internal dream world. “But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper / And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper” (MacEwen 10-11). The first line is a repetition to the first stanza line 3 as it’s using metaphor, and comparing dark pines to an individual’s consciousness. The repetition is used to emphasize the metaphor being used of the dark pines and the human conciseness, and that it’s always spiralling downwards to a dark place. These two lines create an image of a dark abyss with something extraordinaire at the bottom. “dip deeper…Sinking, sinking, sleeper”, are two alliterations used in those lines to reinforce the idea of going downwards and falling with no way of going back up until the destination is reached. “There is something down there and you want it told” (14). This line creates a powerful image that there is something mysterious and appealing at the bottom. It’s also the first time where the reader is certain and want’s to know what’s beneath showing certainty.

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