The Great Figure Annalysis

The poem “The Great Figure” is short, only thirteen lines, and thirty-two words long, but it still conveys a lot. By the use of imagery and the construction of the poem the author, William Carlos Williams, makes you feel as if you were experiencing it first hand. The poem is full of sensory images that all contribute to the feel, not just the fact of the scene. The image of the fire truck is quick, and heavy with urgency, and yet there is the image of the golden number 5, which is completely in focus amidst the dark night. Williams poem shows that clarity can be found in the most obscured and fleeting of situations. Williams creates an atmosphere of urgency and uncertainty to the environment through the use of imagery. The urban landscape of the poem is blurred in the refracted light of a night rain, deafened by the cacophony of clangs and howls, and made to seem altogether unstable and tumultuous by its central image of tension, speed, and change. Williams emphasizes this by both placing the lines "moving/ tense" at the poem's heart, and by moving us in short, tension-ridden, one word lines through that center. The structure of the poem also contributes to the atmosphere. I noticed that each line consists of 4 words or less. This makes the poem abnormally stretched out and “long” for its word count. If I could describe the “shape” of the poem in a physical sense, it would be big and noticeable, which would fit with the aura that the fire truck seems to cast in the dark rainy night. The structure of the poem also describes the title of the poem, “The Great Figure”. In addition, there is a distinct lack of punctuation throughout the poem. To me this enhances the fleeting image of the fire truck. The flow of the poem goes from slow at the beginning, to fast in the middle, and to slow again. This flow almost mimics the image of the fire truck coming and going as it flashes past the speaker. Juxtaposed to this background is the figure 5. The clarity of its