I like the final stanza. The narrator who, throughout this difficult and obligatory "encounter", has tried to remain as "unfeeling" as the stethoscope...turns back of his own volition to take another look at the patient. And for the first time in this poem, she is not just a metaphorical landscape, but also a "girl".
And as she finally becomes a person for him in that stanza, I remember the opening lines, which negated other words sometimes used to depersonalize girls--"witch" and "bitch". On returning to those lines, I see that the concept of heresy has a specific new meaning in light of the rest of the poem: "witch" and "heretic" may refer to the fact that this patient has chosen to defy what science and medicine say regarding food, while "bitch" may refer to her rejection of the male narrator's advice. Yes, the narrator only mentions those words to discard them, but perhaps they come to his mind in the first place because of his frustration in this no-win situation. (Okay, now that I've read the Boland poem, I see why "witch" and "bitch" come to mind, but I still like my interpretation, even if it's wrong!)
I'm fairly sure the opening wouldn't have resonated with me in quite the same way on subsequent readings, had the final stanza been missing.
Last edited by Julie Steiner; 01-05-2010 at 10:35 PM.
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