Analysis Of Sunday Morning By Wallace Stevens

Many go through life questioning whether or not a higher power exists. For others, enjoying life takes precedence over questions of faith. People want to find pleasure and happiness in what is right in front of them, the world. Some would argue that in searching for worldly gratification, people set aside their faith. Instead, choosing to believe in what is real to them, not in something imaginary. This is apparent in the poem “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens. The audience witnesses a woman going through the contemplation of living her life or searching for a Christian paradise. Through out the poem, there are two voices present, one being the woman and the other which refers to the woman as “she” or “her”, which could be interpreted as
The second section begins with a question “Why should she give her bounty to the dead?” The voice is fighting with the woman against the idea of having faith in an eternity. In this stanza, the opposing side of her is saying why should she be giving her gift, which could be her life, her time, and devotion to Jesus who is referred to as “dead.” The voice is saying the woman is relishing the “Complacencies of the peignoir, and late/ Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,” she shouldn’t relinquish herself to the idea of an eternity found in Jesus, while there is beauty in the moment she is living in now. The voice is pleading her to see the paradise that is in front of her. The voice goes on saying “Shall she not find the comforts of the sun, / In the pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else / In any balm or beauty of the earth.” The author is showing that there should be contentment in all there is to marvel at on earth, describing the overwhelming beauty that exist in the simplest of ways, in everyday objects that we take for granted. The voice ends the second stanza saying, “These are the measures destined for her soul.” In concluding with this the author is
As she contemplates on the idea of heaven, to further give herself reason why the belief in it is wrong. In stanza six she says, “Is there no change of death in paradise? / Does ripe fruit never fall? / Or do the boughs / Hang there heavy in that perfect sky.” The woman doesn’t understand the concept of heaven, as in the previous stanza she says that death brings about change and change brings beauty. By containing this notion, how would heaven be beautiful if there is no change? She isn’t able to conceive or image a heaven of this is what to be expected. As she ponders on this she recognizes the earth to be “perishing.” The readers once again see the back in forth going on in the woman’s thoughts. She wants to believe in something more, in “imperishable bliss” but wonders if heaven is where she will find this, when the beauty she looks for happens on earth because change always happens. Through these lines, the author is demonstrating how finding an eternal contentment could be difficult, and the woman is a testament of this. Always searching for more, something everlasting, but scared that she won’t find what she sees as beautiful in anywhere