The Visitor Essay

381 Words2 Pages
“The Visitor” The image of a piano tuner slowly bringing a piano to life immerses the reader of “The Visitor” by Gibbons Ruark into a world dominated by sound and beauty. By using auditory imagery, rhythm and structure, the poem evokes a world dominated and in harmony with nature through music. The piano tuning of the man evokes the image of a piano coming to life, or waking from a slumber. “The dusty wires… quiver like bowstrings as he/ Twists them one notch tighter.” The piano is personified but the tuner is never fully satisfied until the speaker’s wife accepts to play, allowing it to take over the place with “the long afternoon that blurs in a haze/ Of music.” In the last five lines of the poem, human synthesized sounds give way to a pure sound/note struck by a cat on the piano. The harmony of nature with music is seen through this imagery as notes of music or sound only enhance the things around them, while having a big impact as we can imagine the ripples of water following the “single lucid drop of water that stars [the speaker’s] dream.” Another aspect of the poem that reinforces this idea is the diction where music is closely linked with the words “blaze”, “nocturnes”, “Clair de Lune” (moonlight), and “stars.” Each of these words have a connection to the night sky, an aspect of our world which has long fascinated men. To connect music to these images places its importance and beauty at the same level as the stars, moon and sun. In juxtaposition, there is the manner in which the piano tuner is regarded. The term used is “visitor”, which implies the idea of a friend, or an old and welcome acquaintance rather than someone that is occasionally employed. The familiarity resulting from the music emphasizes the harmony that it brings to Earth. Finally, Ruark’s rhythm and structure in the poem evoke music once again. With lines that alternate between 9
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