Human Nature in Stevens "The Emperor of Ice Cream".
Wallace Stevens "The Emperor of Ice Cream" is a poem about the frivolity in human nature. Located in the setting of a wake, the poem uses plain, nondescript characters, and a disposition to eating ice cream to show the reader the lack of concern for unpleasant duties and the inclination towards luxury and lushness in us all. The use of metaphors further depicts some of the deeper meanings in the poem, and are broken into the two stanzas of the poem.
The poem is formed in two stanzas: the first is where the ice cream is being made and where all the people are, and the second is of a bedroom where a corpse is lying unattended. In the first stanza Stevens gives the descriptions of all the characters but the dead, which due to the customs of the times were most likely neighbors of the deceased. The characters are described as average, working class people. The usage of simple average people help the reader to understand that their unrefined actions are those of undisciplined human nature, desires of the flesh, so to speak. This is revealed by Stevens writing, "Let the wenches dawdle is such dress, as they are used to wear, and let the boys bring flowers in last months newspapers" (4-6). The ice cream maker is also a cigar roller, "Call the roller of big cigars, the muscular one, and bid him whip" (1-2), which is confirmed by the following line, "In kitchen cups concupiscent curds" (3). This makes the scene lighter in mood than one would expect for a wake; cigars are used mostly in celebratory atmospheres. The order in which the author depicts the scene is also of importance. The "Emperor of Ice Cream" appears first, further showing the simplicity of the mourners and the strength of selfishness in human nature. The only reference to the dead woman in the first stanza is in line 7, "Let be be finale of seem", which not only reveals the unimportance of the deceased, but shows the indifference of the characters to her death.