Topic > First death in Nova Scotia

There are many things children don't understand. Their lack of experience makes them unaware of what is happening around them and even unaware of the presence of death. When someone a child knows dies, it's a really hard transition: where did they go? Will I never be able to see him again? What will happen next? When a person is young, his understanding is less developed, so there are many questions. "First Death in Nova Scotia" is about a little girl who has just experienced her first loss, the death of her little cousin Arthur. The speaker presents to us readers the situation she has to endure and tries to make us understand what it is for her with some childhood analogies. Elizabeth Bishop compares innocence with death in the hands of a little girl, who knows nothing about death. Bishop brings together a variety of concepts and techniques in the poem to demonstrate the speaker's innocence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay One of these concepts is language, a simple and childlike vocabulary that makes us understand his way of thinking. With her vocabulary, the speaker portrays her confusion and ignorance regarding death due to the metaphors and similes she uses. In the fourth stanza he says, “It was all white, like a doll / that hadn't been painted yet” (31-32). This comparison shows the lack of description the speaker has to say about her cousin because she is a girl who had a really happy and pleasant childhood and has never experienced such a sad and confusing thing. He's out of his comfort zone. Another example is in the third stanza, “Arthur's coffin was / a little frosted cake” (28). This language used shows how the speaker tries to connect the situation with things he is familiar with to create an image of his cousin so he can understand what is happening. This comparison shows his knowledge of death, which is really poor. This is how Bishop emphasizes the idea that death is a new thing to the speaker and how difficult it is for her to explain what she sees. Confusion is another thing that the author uses within the poem to show how difficult this situation is for the little girl, and how she is dealing with it for the first time. In the third stanza the speaker's mother tells her: “Come and say hello / to your little cousin Arthur” (22-23). She is so confused that she doesn't know what to do and her mother has to guide her through this process. This is also the only thing said referring to his cousin's death, no one shows any emotion towards Arthur's death. It's as if the little girl is the only one who takes care of him. This silence contributes to intensifying the little girl's confusion. In the last stanza the speaker says, "But how could Arthur go, clutching his tiny lily, with his eyes so closed and the streets deep in snow?" (47-50). She knows he's gone, but at the same time she doesn't know. It's the same feeling you get when you know something happened but you don't know why it happened, what exactly happened, or what will happen next. She only knows that he left her and she will never see him again, she is not sure where her cousin is. But the line that shows all the speaker's confusion is in stanza number two, where he says, “Since Uncle Arthur shot him / a bullet, / he hadn't said a word” (11-13). The reader gets the feeling that it was Uncle Arthur who killed Cousin Arthur because the author does not specify who "he" is, but is actually indicating the death of the madman that Uncle Arthur had killed earlier. This confusion is done so that the reader can get an idea of ​​what it means to be the speaker and what is going on in the speaker's mind. Another way in which the author indicates the little girl's confusion is the absence of words such as "death", "dying" or.