The Homebody

by Dorothy Parker
There still are kindly things for me to know,
Who am afraid to dream, afraid to feel-
This little chair of scrubbed and sturdy deal,
This easy book, this fire, sedate and slow.
And I shall stay with them, nor cry the woe
Of wounds across my breast that do not heal;
Nor wish that Beauty drew a duller steel,
Since I am sworn to meet her as a foe.

It may be, when the devil's own time is done,
That I shall hear the dropping of the rain
At midnight, and lie quiet in my bed;
Or stretch and straighten to the yellow sun;
Or face the turning tree, and have no pain;
So shall I learn at last my heart is dead.


This is a sonnet written by Dorothy Parker. It is a Petrarchan sonnet, as it consists of a quatrain and a sestet, and follows the rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA CDECDE. I found this poem quite difficult to analyze because there is no clear reference of the subject. I interpreted the main character of the poem as one who is distraught over the loss of a relationship. The character is confined to his home and, while glad that he still has "other things" that he can be with (his personal belongings in his house, eg. his chair), he is suffering emotionally from the loss. The sestet helps strengthen the general somber tone of the poem, as it almost portrays the character as "dead".
There aren't very many literary devices used, but there is a significant amount of description and imagery. The author describes the chair, the fire, and rain. One of the few literary devices that the author does use, though, is alliteration, which can be found on line 12 (stretch and straighten).