Katie Tevebaugh

Mr. Jennings

Honors English III

January 17, 2013

“All Hallows’ Eve”

The fourteen line poem “All Hallows Eve” by Dorothea Tanning comes with a simple a, b rhyme scheme running throughout the poem. It’s vivid imagery and dark words convey a meaning full of deceit and mask the truth to ensure your future.

The very title of this poem makes a point about the poem. All Hallows Eve, unless you’re very religious or know your catholic history, one would not know that that is the catholic equivalent to Halloween as most know it as. The title itself is hiding the true meaning. It’s making it seem as if it is something better than it really is. This theme plays out through the rest of the poem.

“Be perfect, make it otherwise.” The punctuation in this simple five word sentence makes it what it is. It states “Be perfect”, perfection which is so highly prized and so hard to obtain, and then followed by a comma and the words “make it otherwise”. Who would think to make it otherwise, if you had the option to be perfect? The structure of this very line makes you wonder whether the poem is saying you should, or should not, be perfect. But then line 13 and 14 clear that question up. The word “otherwise” was so strongly portrayed in the first line and when it is brought up again it challenges the command that starts the poem and follows it by a horrible consequence “You and the werewolf: newlyweds.” No one would ever want to be married to a werewolf but if you do not act perfect you very well might be marrying a monster. The poem is coming off to tell you how to be the perfect housewife, know what to do, when to do it, otherwise you will have no choice but to be married to a monster.

When “Countless overwrought housewives,” comes up it is followed by comparisons that show how sad a life as a house wife can be, but the last line filled with that horrible consequence reminds you that all these things are a must to secure your perfect husband. The comparisons come in to play when talking about the minds of housewives slowly loosing grasp of reality like a spool of thread loses thread. It then goes into how the lost minded housewives

“tranquilize” or numb the thought of age and their personal fears with the lipstick and makeup they put on their face. In a way saying that the ladies putting on make-up are like a victim of a tranquilizer. They may seem calm and peaceful on the outside inside they are still committing the very dangerous acts that caused them to be silenced in the first place.

“Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies,” gives the feeling of an interrogation of some kind, the spies trying to figure your inner most thoughts. You have to act like nothing is wrong or “be perfect,” as the poem says. Act like you are happy be the perfect woman. The next line is warning the woman about not mistaking a cheap incomparable faucet to a fountain.it tell the reader to “ drink tasty antidotes” which we can safely assume is the consumption of alcohol.

Seeing that every “real housewives of …” consists of multiple soccer moms with a glass of wine in hand at all times.

Going back to the beginning of the poem, “Yesterday is torn to shreds”. This makes it seem as something happened in the subjects past that they don’t want to come back. They want to tear it up and never see it again. This maybe the reason why the subject is telling her to be perfect because anything in your past can be brought up at any time, but if you tear it to shreds no one can hold it against you. “Rip apart the breathing beads” again with the demolishing acts.

They don’t just want to throw away they want to demolish, and never look back. So it’s like they are staring all over, starting over to be perfect. That is, perfect on the outside.

The poem over all has a fairly clear message concerning the act of becoming a house wife. You have to be perfect, and do things you don’t want to do to get the “man of your dreams” that can support you.