"Division"

Paper Summary:

The writer of this paper discusses the manner in which Chitwood's poem encourages the reader to look at daily events in our everyday lives in a totally different light. The writer contends and explains how watching a carpenter work on unfinished furniture may appear to have no meaning or purpose, yet the speaker of this poem suddenly learns to make a spiritual connection to this specific event. This paper details the content of the poem while examining the metaphor of carpentry, which the speaker compares to everyday life. This paper analyzes the way Chitwood allows the reader to see the world through the eyes of a young boy, that is just realizing how life truly operates.

From the Paper:

"In the second stanza of the poem, we move from the carpenter's life and his surroundings to the speaker's world, which is the "same white weeks at school." The speaker describes how he learns about dividing on math class. The image he provides here is one that is much like what a house would look like. For instance, he tells us that to divide, you make a Lean-to/for the big number to go under." Here we see the image of a roof appearing. The speaker then tells us that the little number "waited outside." After working the problem of division, we are told that the "answer appeared on the roof." In the speaker's mind, the problem becomes a metaphor of building something because he can easily relate it to the carpenter's work. This idea becomes even clearer when the speaker observes that the bedroom suite came together over the winter months of December, January, and February. It is something that takes time and work."

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