First Death

The poem “First Death in Nova Scotia” by Elizabeth Bishop was written in a child’s perspective about how they view death/funerals. Children do not understand what death is. They do not know what is going on. They seem to notice everything else around them.
The child in the poem “First Death in Nova Scotia” is at her little cousin’s funeral. The child does not understand what is going on and doesn’t seem to really notice that everyone else is sad. Children seem to notice everything else around them. The child uses similes, for example "Arthur's coffin was a little frosted cake," "He was all white, like a doll that hadn't been painted yet, and" Jack frost has started to paint him." A child compares things too what they know. The child also describes the picture frame of the royal family that is above the coffin. You can tell in the second stanza that a child does not know what death is. She starts to explain a loon and how her uncle shot it, “Since Uncle Arthur fired a bullet into him, he hasn’t said a word.” By saying this we know that the child is paying more attention to everything else in the room rather than being sad about her cousin’s death.
In the last stanza the child says “but how could Arthur go, clutching his tiny lily, with his eyes shut up so tight and the roads deep in snow?” The child is trying to say why is Arthur is lying in the box when he should be having fun? I think that the child thinks that this is a birthday party. I feel that at the end of the poem the child is sad because Arthur isn’t opening his eyes or “waking up” to play or celebrate. He is just lying