20 pages • 40 minutes read

Five Flights Up

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1974

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

How Day Symbolizes Knowledge and the Owner Symbolizes Ignorance

When it’s “[s]till dark” (Line 1), the dog and bird inquire about something that the speaker doesn’t specify; then “day itself” (Line 9) answers the supposed questions, which indicates day is a symbol for knowledge. The night pushes the dog and the bird to seek answers, and, once it’s light, day supplies the explanations “directly” and “simply” (Line 8), turning day into a vessel of wisdom.

Linking knowledge to light and day goes back to Ancient Greece, when Socrates and his student Plato articulated their beliefs that light equaled truth and reality while darkness represented distortion and misperceptions. In “Five Flights Up,” the owner seems to represent distortion. The owner believes they know the dog since they tell him, “You ought to be ashamed!” (Line 17). Yet the owner is ignorant, as the speaker reveals, “Obviously, he has no sense of shame” (Line 21). Thus, the bird and dog communicate with day, which can accurately answer “everything” (Line 22) since day symbolizes genuine knowledge, while the owner represents a mix of arrogance and obtuseness.

The Owner as a Symbol for Aggression

Aside from symbolizing a lack of wisdom, the owner can symbolize aggression. The owner asserts themself in the poem. Their voice “arises” and is “stern” (Line 16). The voice isn’t a product of nature but their will, so they impose themselves on the simple and “ponderous” (Line 10) morning and collide with its atmosphere. Nothing the day or animals do indicates harshness or serious conflict. The animals, day, and nature seem to get along quite well as a unit. The owner brings asperity to the soothing environment. They’re truculent in a way that separates them from the rest of the poem.

Thus, another way to think of the owner is as a symbol of bellicosity. The owner attempts to impose his beliefs on the dog when they tell it, “You ought to be ashamed!” (Line 17). Shame is not a natural part of the environment, as the speaker quips, “Obviously, he has no sense of shame” (Line 21). The owner’s grandstanding makes them an outlier. They’re out of sync with nature, the animals, and time. The owner doesn’t take the day “lightly” (Line 25); they represent an abrasive element and are not worthy of emulation.

The Idea of Elusive Identity

The notion of identity comes up throughout Bishop’s poem—specifically, the motif of elusive identity. Neither the animals nor the people in the poem have names. The bird is “unknown” even though the speaker knows it well enough to state that it’s on “his usual branch” (Line 2). The speaker doesn’t assign a name to the dog either, even though it has an owner. The owner arguably has the most developed identity since their “voice arises” (Line 16). In other words, the owner has agency and can speak for themself. Yet what the owner says comes across as hardheaded, which suggests concrete identity isn’t such an aspirational concept in Bishop’s poem. Identity gets in the way. It’s best to remain fluid and, like the dog and bird, go with the flow and let time do the work.

The absence of an identifiable speaker furthers the idea that distinguished identity isn’t a blessing. The speaker doesn’t refer to themselves until the last line, and what the speaker says is in a parenthesis, which further minimizes them. The final line also makes the speaker seem helpless or passive, as they find yesterday “almost impossible to lift” (Line 26). In the context of the poem, passivity and helplessness aren’t negatives since the admirable attitude involves letting time do the work and not interfering with the natural process that allows “[y]esterday brought to today so lightly!” (Line 25).