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Will you help me formulate a proposal for a working thesis based on the poem "Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World" by Sherman Alexie?

If your thesis is for a critical analysis essay, make a specific claim about a technique used in the poem and its effect. Here are some examples that you could imitate for their wording and structure:



  • Sherman Alexie’s “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” blends harsh reality with nightmarish language, imitating the nightmarish reality of grief.




  • The poem “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” by Sherman Alexie in some ways parodies the Richard Wilbur poem “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World.”



There are many directions you could take in analyzing this poem. One element to address could be the writer’s use of vulgar language and its effect. For example, using the f-word to describe angels certainly attracts the reader’s attention and is a bold choice that may be worth exploring. You could also analyze the shift from very realistic, matter of fact language to abstract, figurative language used at the end of the poem.


A lengthy analysis could be written on the connection between Alexie’s poem and Wilbur’s “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World,” which Alexie quotes as an epigraph for his similarly titled poem. Alexie’s replacing the word love with grief shows a theme of those ideas being tied together. The poems begin with the same three words, “The eyes open.” While both speakers literally open their eyes, this phrase could be interpreted figuratively to mean a realization. You could also compare the imagery of the poems. Both describe angels, but Wilbur’s angels are creatures of joy while Alexie’s angels are menacing, hellish, with “cold wings” ready to “snare” their victims.


Whatever technique you decide to focus on, make sure to connect your thesis back to the meaning of the poem. The beginning of the poem reads like an anecdote that so many people can relate to—forgetting for a moment that a loved one is gone. Then grief brings the mourner back down to reality, back to “the things of this world.”

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