Pyramid of Bone

Pyramid of Bone Analysis

A brutal poem, no doubt, "Pyramid of Bone" certainly has audacity, if nothing else. The poem is an unabashed depiction of the anger and envy that arise when a person indulges in fantasies about how easy other people's lives seem in comparison to a person's own life. This shows the origin of the jealous hatred that produced fratricide in the story of Cain and Abel. The poet is at risk of becoming morally corrupted because she has an unrealistic expectation for what life was supposed to be like, represented in the fictional princess, Snow White.

The primary ideas treated by the poetry seem to be shame (depicted as whiteness or cleanliness) and experience (represented by the shadow of the ideal, which constitutes a kind of Platonic dualism). So the poetry is a demand for more meaning. She wants to know why her dirt and failure is better than Snow White, and in the end she phrases her incredulous frustration perfectly in her suggestion that Snow White has something she does not have.

What is the implication? What does Snow White have exactly that the speaker does not? Well, blessing of course. The poet is drawing attention to the fact that Snow White would have been corrupted too, if she'd been forced to suffer real experiences, but since Disney princesses are fictional, the poet experiences a hatred against women who seem to be having a better time in life than she is. The poem has a feminist implication that women should not be given false expectations about what life will really demand, or else they might become bitter when they are left disappointed.

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