Symbol Analysis of One Art by Elizabeth Bishop - Lab Report Example

ng is not hard, since so many things are seemed to be built, so that they can easily be lost: “so many things seem filled with the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster” (Bishop 2-3). By saying this, the speaker displaces self-blame for what she loses. Instead, she blames the built-in nature of some things, which is why they are lost. Since losing is too easy, the speaker advises people to even lose something every day. This is part of learning the art of losing; practicing losing will help people get better in accepting it: “Lose something every day.

Accept the fluster” (Bishop 4). The speaker motivates the practice of losing, including accepting the “fluster” or confusion that goes with it. She is saying that people should get used to losing and the usual anxieties related to it. This way, losing becomes natural and emotion-neutral. Some of the things people often lose are mentioned in the poem, particularly “lost door keys” and “the hour badly spent” (Bishop 5). These are inconsequential things, which further trivialize the process and outcome of losing.

Indeed, the audience can easily relate to losing these “lose-able” things. They will tend to agree that: “The art of losing isnt hard to master” (Bishop 6). From lines 1 to 6, the speaker intends to trivialize losing. In fact, losing is so easy that it should not even be considered as an art, because art needs talent. The speaker says that people can lose their keys and hours so absent-mindedly, and that makes losing something easy to accept in one’s life. Losing, thus, is a natural part of human existence, or at least, this is what the speaker wants to think to forget what she has lost.

The speaker of the poem also uses homes and places to portray that losing is not something so easy to learn after all. The language of the poem does not directly admit this, but the change in the selection of what can be lost indicates the hardships of losing. The transition to losing