Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The poet (Moore)
Form and Meter
Free verse
Metaphors and Similes
Simile:
-"the blades of the oars / moving together like the feet of water spiders"
Metaphor:
-the grave is, clearly, a metaphor for the sea. A grave is a dark, deep place for the dead; it is claustrophobic, closed. It connotes fear, horror, incomprehensibility. Describing the sea as a grave, then, gives it the same characteristics and allows us to ruminate on its unfathomable depths.
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration:
-"the tortoise shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs"
Irony
-It is ironic that the man, so confident in his physicality and consciousness, is blithely unaware of the true nature of the sea. He stares at it if he understands it, not knowing that "there are others besides you who have worn that look," and are now mere bones.
Genre
Poetry
Setting
The beach
Tone
annoyed; sardonic; meditative
Protagonist and Antagonist
Pro: Moore, the sea Ant: ignorant humans (men)
Major Conflict
If man will realize the truth regarding the sea's power over and utter disregard towards him.
Climax
There is not a true climax, but the closest thing is when Moore abruptly announces that the sea is a "well excavated grave." She then proceeds to spend the rest of the poem explaining (obliquely, of course) what she means by that.
Foreshadowing
n/a
Understatement
-"looking as if it were not that ocean in which / dropped things are bound to sink" refers to death
Allusions
n/a
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
-"the sea is a collector"
-"the wrinkles progress among themselves in a phalanx"
Hyperbole
n/a
Onomatopoeia
-"rustle"
