An Angel For Bob Analysis

The Jello Introduction
The poem An Angel for Bob by Richard Stevenson is a poem about two men working at a store one training the other to stock shelves and the product falls off the shelves causing one of the men to have a melt down and quit his job leaving the store. Those events work together to prove that in unfamiliar situations it is often hard to understand what acquaintances are going through in their personal lives, but through their actions we can sympathise and come to terms with their behaviours. In this essay I will discuss how Bob and the speaker do not know each other very well, and how it is hard for the speaker to relate to Bobs problems in life along with what the Jello packets symbolize in the context of the poem and the
aftermath of the breakdown.
It is obvious that Bob and the speaker are not very familiar with each other, throughout the poem many statements are made to suggest that the speaker is new to the stockboy job and Bob is training him. The speaker has never worked a job like a stock boy before. In the first stanza he describes his previous jobs as being labour summer jobs or an attempted waiter, all of those jobs are nothing like being a stockboy. The comparison between Bobs green apron and the speakers red once shows a clear difference between there authority at the store, we can assume that Bob has more authority because he is older and he is training the speaker. The speaker is new to the job he probably doesn’t know any details of Bobs life and cannot connect with him.
Watching what happened to Bob that day in the store is very hard for the speaker to understand because he does not know what is happening in Bobs personal life he can only come to sympathise with what he could possibly be going through.
In the beginning of the poem it is clear that the speaker is a young adult because of the way he describes his former jobs, he has worked labouring summer jobs and tried to be a waiter. The tone of the second stanza portrays the speaker of being thankful for his job but not particularly pleased about working with Bob, since Bob is training the speaker it is assumed that he is new to the job and must have just met Bob recently. When first meeting someone especially through work it is common to not know much about their personal lives which makes it hard to understand why they do certain actions. The speaker notices there is something somewhat off with Bob that day but puts it aside. “He’s not all there, but never mind;” (Stevenson ,16), acknowledging that Bob may be struggling with difficult situation the mood of the speaker about working with Bob changes from a bitter standpoint to one that is a slightly more understanding toward Bobs mindset that
day. The Jello packets falling off the shelves is a very accurate description of what happens to a person’s brain when it succumbs to stress. “His hands begin to shake and the packets of Jello tumble from the selves.”(Stevenson, 29-30) is a metaphor to what it feels like to lose your mind. The amount of concentration Bob was putting into putting the Jello up on the shelves trying not to knock the rest of the packets off is representing the fragile system of the mind. The Jello falling has happened to Bob before but something was different on this day which is exemplified by the speaker saying “Bob cannot take it today” (Stevenson, 34). What was different on this day than all the other is what the speaker does not know and cannot understand but when Bob starts to break all the Jello packets the speaker does not stop him and this shows that that the speaker sympathizes with Bob.
After Bob has his outburst of anger he is eerily calm, he quits his job and the speaker wants to make an angel in the Jello powered on the floor.
The act of making an angel for Bob could symbolize the speaker finally having full respect for Bob, because angels are often a sign of the divine and heaven which is the final freedom. The speaker saying that he is going to make the angel with “calisthenic precision”(Stevenson, 45) illustrates that the angel will be made with perfect meticulousness which is a sign of respect because it would take so a lot of effort to get an angel to look perfect. The speaker never stopped Bob to ask what he was doing or try to convince him not to quit he just lets it happen and that shows the speaker really respects Bobs decision to quit the
store.
The fact that Bob and the speaker did not know each other well enough to know details about his life and saw Bob go through his outburst of anger but still appreciate Bobs decision to quit the job. When he does not stop Bob from crushing all the Jello boxes it demonstrates how when you see someone who is unfamiliar go through a traumatic experience it is easier to relate with and try to understand.