Critical Thinking Blog #4

The simplicity and yet utter complexity in William Carlos Williams’ poems are what make them intrinsically beautiful. Through a quick glance at any of his poems, one can take them for their strictly literal meaning, however, after careful reading and thoughtful interpretation their deep meaning can be discovered. However, the meaning is ultimately left up to interpretation, which provides various and interesting perspectives and takes. An example of this in Williams’ work is “This Is Just to Say.” The imagery and depiction of this poem allow the readers to place themselves within this situation and evaluate their reactions to such an occurrence. While we spoke in class about the numerous meanings of the text, the one that is the most interesting to me and seems to be the most logical is the concept of forbidden fruit. While it is not necessarily about adultery, there is certainly the aspect of knowingly committing an act that is sinful in nature and one’s inability to deny temptation and give in to what they inherently know is wrong.. There is obviously no remorse by the speaker since they never apologize, but also they show no emotion in committing this act. Since it is described as “cold,” there lacks any sort of connection and is merely for the pleasure of enjoying the “sweet” and “delicious” fruit. Thus, the sex aspect comes into play because adulterous sex can oftentimes be just for the physical intimacy devoid of an emotional connection, which makes it cold.