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Mackensie Jackson

Professor Sheridan

Studies in Poetry

21 April 2016

The Personal Struggles of Finding One’s Identity within the poem “In the Waiting Room” by

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “In the Waiting Room” discusses finding one’s identity during

World War I as can be seen through the speaker who is sitting in a waiting room reading the

National Geographic while the speaker’s aunt is seeing a dentist. The speaker of the poem is a

six-year-old girl named Elizabeth who has to stay in a waiting room while her aunt gets her teeth

looked at in the dentist’s office. While Elizabeth’s waiting, she picks up a 1918 copy of the

National Geographic and as she reads it and looks at the images within the magazine, Elizabeth

begins to look at her own identity and what she must face while growing up in the time of the

first World War. In my paper, I will include the analyzations of Jeredith Merrin who examines

what the raw lines within the poem mean in her article “An Enabling Humility: Marianne Moore,

Elizabeth Bishop, and the Uses of Tradition”; Betsy Erkkila who will discuss the child’s

resistance to become a female adult in the world in her article “Differences that Kill: Elizabeth

Bishop and Marianne Moore”; Elizabeth Dodd who discusses how Bishop fights gender equality

in her poem which is shown in Dodd’s article “The Veiled Mirror and the Woman Poet: H.D.,

Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Bishop, and Louise Glück.”; and Renée R Curry who discusses how the

author of this poem wants to connect the young girl with womanhood and the hardships that

come when becoming a woman which is shown in Curry’s article “White Women Writing
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White: H. D., Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath and Whiteness.” I will include my own opinions

based off the poem itself and the analyses presented here. Most importantly, this essay will look

at the fact that Bishop’s poem has a lot to do with people finding their own identities in life over

time.

First, it is important to look at the false beliefs presented in the poem to understand what

this poem might be about. Elizabeth Dodd notes that some critics have suggested that Bishop’s

poem is just another one of her poems about lesbianism (Dodd). In reality, Bishop’s poem “In

the Waiting Room” is not as simple as assumptions presume. Bishop’s poem does not talk about

cannibalism, lesbianism, or killing of babies (Dodd). What the poem is actually trying to

perceive is the crisis everyone goes through. A crisis of trying to find who one is and who one is

meant to become. In the poem, Bishop uses the speaker, Elizabeth, and the speaker’s depiction

of breasts in the magazine she is reading as being “horrifying” and opens the door of the six-

year-old speaker so that she may see for herself what she wants to be and what she wants to look

like in the future (Bishop L.31). Presumably, a six-year-old will not know breasts are necessary

for breast feeding children, but the fact that Elizabeth is, for the first time, forming her own

opinion about who she wants to be and what she wants to look like gives the reader a chance to

see how one person began their journey of self-discovery.

Some people believed that this poem related to lesbianism because it depicted a small

female child looking at naked women from a magazine called the National Geographic and

because it was talking about the naked women’s breast. However, the poem is actually meant to

show a young girl figuring out her own journey into womanhood:

black, naked women with necks

wound round and round with wire
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like the necks of light bulbs.

Their breasts were horrifying.
I read it right straight through.
I was too shy to stop (Bishop Ll.28-33).

This part of the poem describes what the child saw in the magazine and what she thought of it.

Obviously, this child is not interested in becoming a woman when she uses the words

“horrifying” to describe what she thinks of the black women’s breasts (Bishop L.31). Dodd

portrays these lines as being about a female child who does not want to accept her role in society

as a woman and does not want her body to change (Dodd). Presumably, the young child is used

to her own body and she probably sees the breasts on the women as something more of a

nuisance than a necessity. In other words, Bishop is getting into the mind of a young girl named

Elizabeth who believes that she will change who she is by changing her outer appearance. Many

people who are adults in society are trying to find out what kind of person they are on the inside

and are trying to figure out what they want to look like on the outside to others. Bishop was

trying to get across in her poem that adults can learn from this young girl who, instead of

wanting to change who she is on the outside, wants her body to remain the way it is. Whether

that’s because she likes her own body or because she does not like change is up to interpretation.

Unfortunately, the idea of finding one’s identity is not an easy task and Bishop shows the

child’s struggles with discovering and accepting her identity while waiting for her Aunt in the

Dentist’s waiting room. In Betsy Erkkila’s opinion, Bishop shows in her poem, “the girlchild’s

terror and resistance as she experiences her identification with other women as a fall into the

oppression and constraints of gender – signified by her "foolish aunt" and "those awful hanging

breasts" she sees in the National Geographic as she reads and waits in the dentist’s office”

(Erkkila). In essence, Erkkila believes that the speaker is bothered by the restraints women face
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in society because of their gender (Erkkila). Yes, Erkkila has a point when stating that the child

judged the aunt as being “foolish” because of the aunt’s boundaries as a woman in society, but

Erkkila goes too far when stating that Bishop’s mission and main focus is to talk about women’s

oppression. Instead, Bishop’s main focus is on the child’s struggle identifying who she is and

who she will become when she is a grown-up. Fortunately, Dodd recognizes the complications

of gender presented in the poem, but she mainly notices that, “Elizabeth is not really discovering

her sexuality so much as she is discovering her own participation in the human race -including

her gender identity” (Dodd). In the poem, Elizabeth is beginning to find herself and what role

she plays in society.

Even though Bishop’s main focus is not gender equality, it still plays a substantial role in

the poem. As Dodd mentioned, “the poem shows gender awareness,” and how it is important to

talk about gender inequality in society (Dodd). After Bishop talks about the “horrifying breasts”

in her poem, the speaker continues with, “I was too shy to stop,” meaning she could not turn

away from the magazine, implying that even if people are afraid of discussing gender inequality,

they should (Bishop L.33). Just as Elizabeth is too engrossed in the magazine’s depictions of

women to turn away, people in society should not turn away from the injustices of women

presented in society or else those injustices will never be resolved. Jennifer Merrin says that

Elizabeth has an, “anxiety about growing up a woman,” that could have to do with a fear of

growing up in a society filled with people who judge others based on their gender (Merrin).

Also, Erkkila suggests that the speaker does not want her identity to be, “lost and absorbed,” in

the fact that she is a female (Erkkila). In my opinion, the speaker is struggling with the fact that

she’s a girl because she’s afraid to deal with the changes her body will have in the future.
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Furthermore, this young girl’s body is different from a grown woman’s body, so the young girl

sees these unfamiliar things on a girl and thinks that it is ugly because she’s not used to having

them yet herself. To be clear, Elizabeth has to grow up first before she can understand that

breasts are not a horrible and ugly sight but are something every woman has and can use to

nourish their babies. Also, the fear of inequality is present within the poem, but it does not

overshadow the idea that this young girl has been introduced to something she has never been

fully aware of before and casts a light on the natural beauty of women that some people,

including the young girl who has yet to have breasts of her own, have yet to understand and fully

appreciate.

In addition to this, the poem demonstrates how the little girl does not want to be

compared not only with other women, but with her family as well. In these lines, it can be seen

that the young girl just wants to be her own person without having to be a woman or her Aunt or

her family:

Why should I be my aunt,

or me, or anyone?
What similarities--
boots, hands, the family voice
I felt in my throat (Bishop Ll.75-79).

Here, it is made evident that the little girl does not want to turn into something besides who she

is; she does not want to grow up to be compared to who her family is because they might make

her change in order for her to fit into society’s standards for women. For example, this young

girl might be compelled by her family to act like she’s above other people because she is from a

rich family or she might be told by her family not to delegate with poor folks because it would be
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improper and would make people look down upon her family’s ancestry. Either way, Bishop

attempts to show a young girl who will not be content with going the straight and narrow way by

listening and being something she is not just because that’s what her family wants her to do.

Another important aspect of the poem is the speaker finding who she is and shaping her

personality. In Merrin’s perspective, Bishop, “suggests (by its halting, anxious flatness and its

flashes of menacing imagery) that just beneath the individual attempt at rational arrangement or

domestication is intractable otherness, ready to erupt like the volcano pictured in the dentist's

office copy of the National Geographic” (Merrin). In other words, Bishop is making the speaker

someone who, because they are young, has yet to develop and realize their own personality, but

one day, that personality will “erupt” like the volcano in the poem and be unleashed upon the

world. In addition, Bishop uses straightforward lines such as, “it was still the fifth/ of February,

1918,” with contrasting lines like:

the inside of a volcano,

black, and full of ashes;
then it was spilling over
in rivulets of fire (Bishop Ll.17-20)

These lines put emphasis on what Bishop wants the reader to notice most in the poem.

Furthermore, by using this to put emphasis on the volcano, Bishop is in turn putting emphasis on

the personality that the young girl has within herself, but that has not been able to be unleashed

yet because of her young age. This puts a positive attitude towards women because it turns

females into people with lots of personality who can deal with harsh aspects of life better than

people assume they can. In essence, while Bishop shows readers the first accounts of a young
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girl finding herself in the world, it also happens to show a positive aspect on women and the

greatness they hold within themselves.

Now, Renée R. Curry believes that the child, Elizabeth, is dealing with three situations

that she does not want to admit she has in the poem which are, “her connectedness to women, to

a particular family, and to pain” (Curry). Elizabeth is trying to hide from these problems by

talking about her upcoming birthday, but she still feels the need to ask the question, “Why?”

when contemplating these three issues in her life (Curry). Curry believes the child’s reason for

being upset by the naked women’s breasts is because these women are African American, and

this young girl is Caucasian (Curry). When reading the poem, Curry suggests that Bishop was

trying to show the connection between the young girl, Elizabeth, and all the things the magazine

is making her uncertain about. For example, Elizabeth becomes upset by the thought that her

Aunt is just another woman who is down casted by society because she is a woman. Certainly,

Bishop was attempting to help the young girl see the oppression women sometimes face, but

Bishop was also trying to help her see that women are powerful and independent and brilliant in

their own ways by showing a woman’s body in its most true form.

In the last few stanzas of the poem, Bishop shows the six-year-old girl go back to the

calm unawareness that she is used to in her life. The poem goes from, “and those awful hanging

breasts--,” or, “Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain” which shows the raw feelings of the

young girl sitting in the Dentist’s waiting room to, “in Worcester, Massachusetts” and, “and it

was still the fifth/ of February, 1918” which shows basically nothing and does not give the reader

any clue as to what the reader may be feeling at this point in time (Bishop Ll.81, 36-37, 96, 98-

99). In addition, these lines start off as unique and heartfelt, but by the last lines of the poem,

these lines have become calm and simple-minded. This contrast made by Bishop is meant, in my
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thoughts, to mean that the young girl has stopped looking at herself and has stopped wondering

who she is supposed to be. Instead, this young girl has returned to being a six-year-old girl who

should not have to worry about what kind of person she is going to be yet and this is seen

through Bishop’s change in the flow of the lines within her poem. By doing this, Bishop shows

that this child is still too young for her mind to understand the intricacies of being a person and

of being different from others based on personality.

To sum up, Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “In the Waiting Room” talks about a short-lived

personality realization by a six-year-old girl named Elizabeth while she waits in the Dentist’s

office for her aunt. Most critics discussed how the young girl found out that she has a

personality, but because she is so young, she does not hold on to it and it eventually fades. After

this, she will continue to grow up and develop more of her own personality and this poem

describes the first encounter a young girl has with discovering her own personality. Less

frequently, critics talked about issues of gender roles within the poem, but the main focus was on

Elizabeth finding her identity for the first time during the course of the poem. Even though the

poem does discuss how women are treated unequally compared to men and how people must

take time to find their true selves, there is no comparison to the effect learning about one’s own

personality can place on a person’s attitude on life.

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Works Cited

Bishop, Elizabeth. “In the Waiting Room.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web.

April 21, 2016.

Curry, Renée R. “White Women Writing White: H. D., Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath and

Whiteness.” English.illinois.edu. Modern American Poetry, 2000. Web. May 2, 2016.

Dodd, Elizabeth. “The Veiled Mirror and the Woman Poet: H.D., Louise Bogan, Elizabeth

Bishop, and Louise Glück.” English.illinois.edu. Modern American Poetry, 1992. Web.

April 21, 2016.

Erkkila, Betsy. “Differences that Kill: Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore.”

English.illinois.edu. Modern American Poetry, 1992. Web. April 21, 2016.

Merrin, Jeredith. “An Enabling Humility: Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and the Uses of

Tradition.” English.illinois.edu. Modern American Poetry, 1990. Web. April 21, 2016.