Elegy # 3

In the poem "Let's Go Back," Mary Jo Bang uses imagery to demonstrate her pain over the loss of her son.  She asks to go back in time to when her son was first born.  She remembers his birthday and how happy of an occasion it was.  She writes, "And now July, that ladder half-/ Birthday that marks nothing but a rake/ that pushes back the pack of wild dogs into a cage"(5-7).  The image of wild dogs being put away suggests that his birthday was one of the only times that her troubles in life were pushed away.  She valued his birthday as a pleasant break from life, but that was while he was alive.  She then changes to a scene where he dies.  She writes, "There is no worse/ Than this last act where you disappear/ Behind the curtain of addiction and catastrophe"(9-11).  She relates his death to the final act of a play where he is hidden behind a curtain; stricken from the play entirely.  The curtain of addiction and catastrophe suggests that his death was drug related.  Mary Jo Bang's use of imagery suggests the idea that life is only pleasant when you are young and innocent.

In the poem "Guilt," Mary Jo Bang uses tone to express the idea that death is an inevitable tragedy.  She tells how her sons death weighs on her mind, even though there was nothing she could do to help him.  Sh writes, "And him, perched in her mind,/ Never to be unbalanced again"(11-12).  She cannot stop thinking about her son.  He will be stuck in her mind and nothing will ever be able to take him out.  She continues to write about his death in the hospital.  She writes,"Never to be hospital bedded, mother loved./ Oh, he's peaceful now, they told her"(13-14).  She continues the dark tone by using the cliche of people being at peace.  She establishes a sad, hopeless tone by saying he will never be mother loved.  She's lost her son and is lamenting him.  Mary Jo Bang uses tone to establish the theme that death is an inevitable tragedy.