Poem Analysis: To Take For Granted

To Take For Granted There is a universal feeling of uncertainty among so many other emotions when one experiences a brand new setting; a multitude of firsts can be quite intimidating. The main conflict of this excerpt is a struggle between the fear of the unknown, or the unfamiliar, and the more powerful will to change and grow. The narrator describes a deep discomfort in the first paragraph of the passage, explaining how her sound sleeping was not due that night to a feeling of happiness and security, but rather she, “didn’t want to take in anything else” (14-15). This implication of a feeling of being overwhelmed by her new surroundings creates a conflict that forces her to ask herself why she is there in the first place. Since there is no mention of an exterior force making her live in this new place, one can assume she chooses to be in this unfamiliar place, and would even, “grow used to it and like it very much, but at first it was all too new” (9-11).
The author uses great detail and change in tone throughout the excerpt to indicate a journey of emotion and thought to present these two opposing forces.
Within the first sentence, “something I had never done before” (1-2) already shows the narrators deep sense of uncertainty despite the will to learn and grow from her new environment. Perhaps the most telling of metaphors the author uses is the, “pale-yellow sun” (20), which represents an eeriness that such unfamiliar surroundings tend to invoke. This contrasts with the familiarity of the narrator’s native home, represented by a, “bright sun-yellow making everything curl at the edges” (18-19). Her diction also gives this section of the passage true meaning, as the language tends to flow with a rhythm when she discusses her native home versus a choppier, more uncomfortable diction when she describes her current, “all wrong” (27)
environment.
Despite the urge of, “flight” (19), growth is evident as the final paragraph approaches. The narrator admits what she has taken for granted back at home, even the, “bed [she] had outgrown” (62). While the passage ends with her lying in bed, thinking of home, the growth she has already made from being in a new place shows that she has a will to learn instead of trapping herself with, “how impatient [she] had become” (52).
Despite the early, colder tone presented in the second paragraph through detail in words such as, “January” (28) and “weak” (21), the narrator clearly has made progress in discovering what truly makes her happy.