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Neely Van Loon

AP English LIt

White

20 November 2020

The End of a Long Rope

“The Plain Sense of Things” by Wallace Stevens explores what it means to live as

human and what knowledge truly means. The poem’s diction and figurative language suggest

that imagination is the lifeblood of creativity and ingenuity, and it is therefore the reason for all

of humanity’s advancements, and without it, people would crumble. Perhaps this would be a

small mercy to the world, or a devastating loss- people imagine the destruction and

disintegration, but they also imagine the wonders and progress. In the end, imagination can

always be a dangerous thing, but its absence would imply the fullest and most complete death.

The first stanza begins with the line “After the leaves have fallen, we return…” Choosing to

begin the line with ‘after’ implies that this is situated in context the speaker is already aware of, a

situation they are already familiar with. The connotation of the images of the leaves falling

conjures images of fall turning into winter, a symbol of dormancy, stagnation, a place where

there is very little new life. Seasonally, this is where the most death begins to occur. Dormant

does not mean dead though, and maybe winter just holds a different kind of life, like this place

with its imagination. This place, despite the speaker’s claims, cannot represent no imagination

but rather its unraveling. This implies the speaker is dealing with this return to ‘a plain sense of

things’ after already going through the stages of growth, and then returning to dormancy, in a

cyclical fashion. It is as if the base knowledge of the earth comes in waves, becoming stunted
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and repressed as the plain sense of things are revealed. Here, ‘plain’ could either showcase the

simplest truth of things, or be used to describe a rather less pleasant and engaging reality. The

speaker likens this place as ‘the end of imagination’, already a direct contradiction and puzzling

concept to express, especially in such a vivacious art form as poetry. It’s described as a “blank

cold”, using general adjectives that seem to uphold specific feelings- this preciseness, and the

deliberate distancing from more radical or expressive adjectives seems to create a more detached

and clinical tone- almost as if the words are chosen to mirror the same stunting of imagination

that the poem describes. It calmly describes the images of the ruins of a once great effort of

human imagination, and never seems to veer into a wildly passionate attitude towards it. At most,

it is a saddened but distant realization of a permanent end that seems content to lessen its actual

meaning- the end of imagination would be a catastrophe for the human race. It is ironic too,

because the idea of no new ideas being generated is an idea in and of itself- one has to use an act

of imagination to envision a world with no imagination. As the speaker begins to explore what

this means with the shift around the fourth stanza, it almost seems to imply this place of

stagnation holds its own kind of imagination as well. “Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing

silence / Of a sort…” Stating that the fixtures express silence of a sort implies it too is a kind of

‘other’, not true silence, much like the imagination of this place is not quite true either. Perhaps it

is simply an imitation, a copy without an original. The ‘waste’ of the pond and its lilies seems to

create this image of an untended garden/outdoor area, and it's a curious way to describe it. Before

then the speaker describing the dilapidated home seemed more detached, but calling this

assembly of the outdoors a waste illustrates the idea that it had a purpose in the first place, like

maybe it was specifically curated in the beginning to be a part of something, but without any

nurturing or guidance it is simply wilted flowers and muddy water. It’s a good way to showcase
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how the idea of a rundown home and a mind can share the same traits- here, the speaker is

frustrated and almost sad that something that clearly once had potential is nothing but dust and

bones, like someone who was academically inclined but stopped taking care of themselves

and/or nurturing their mind, leading them to nothing. There’s also this ‘return’ to things, the

cycle previously mentioned- maybe everything leads to ruin one day, but especially without care.

This place could never truly represent no imagination, but it does showcase what seems like the

end of the rope. As imagination unravels, structures crumble, the silence becomes something

different, and life stagnates. The absence is the true death. This showcases the relationship to

both imagination and knowledge- the greatest thinkers were those that allowed creativity to

guide them. With no new drive to create, no desire to learn, knowledge stagnates and wastes

away in a pond as a reminder of once great feats it achieved.