Hey everybody.
I am doing a project on a poem by Anne Sexton called, "The Earth Falls Down" and I was wondering if any of you could break down the meaning for me. I have some ideas but I wanted to hear from other poets. Thank you.:)

The Earth Falls Down

If I could blame it all on the weather,
the snow like the cadaver's table,
the trees turned into knitting needles,
the ground as hard as a frozen haddock,
the pond wearing its mustache of frost.
If I could blame conditions on that,
if I could blame the hearts of strangers
striding muffled down the street,
or blame the dogs, every color,
sniffing each other
and pissing on the doorstep...
If I could blame the bosses
and the presidents for
their unpardonable songs...
If I could blame it on all
the mothers and fathers of the world,
they of the lessons, the pellets of power,
they of the love surrounding you like batter...
Blame it on God perhaps?
He of the first opening
that pushed us all into our first mistakes?
No, I'll blame it on Man
For Man is God
and man is eating the earth up
like a candy bar
and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean
for it is known he will gulp it all down.
The stars (possibly) are safe.
At least for the moment.
The stars are pears
that no one can reach,
even for a wedding.

Perhaps for a death.

There's a metaphor of cosumption in fact I think its an extended metaphor somewhere in therre and a pre-dominant theme of temptation. She's taken material from her enviroment and modern aspects of what she's seen, connotated those ideas, personified them into this poem. Its basic analysis.

If I could blame it on all
the mothers and fathers of the world,
they of the lessons, the pellets of power,
they of the love surrounding you like batter...
Blame it on God perhaps?



Here, shows evidence of the relationship with food. Eg. 'like batter'. Connotations of that sink in there. The mothers and fathers of the world - referring to probably somebody highly respected in faith and religion.

He of the first opening
that pushed us all into our first mistakes?
No, I'll blame it on Man
For Man is God

Scapegoat?

Since the human race was cultivated by one teacher, over all. Perhaps the blame all goes back to him? Something like that. It exploits those ideas. So perhaps one subtheme is sin. The ideas with the pears is definitely temptation. Mostly, I think its a prang between first education and its mistakes and perhaps the facts that back in the olden days when christ was alive, it explores the ideas of disobediance as well most probably. Anyway, thats enough from me for now. Hope this is helpful.

WOW!!! Thanks for the help and you use some archtypes(sp). Thank you sooo much.:) :hug:

No problem. What are archtypes?

I'm not sure how morally correct it is to give out help with what I presume is school work...

No problem. What are archtypes?
I forget the exact meanings of them because I haven't went over them in a while but a couple of examples are, Scapegoat, Starcrossed lovers, outcast and so on.

the mothers and fathers of the world,
they of the lessons, the pellets of power,
they of the love surrounding you like batter...

could you possibly explain this to me, please?

Ehh. Probably means they teach the lessons which mean they own authority. Yet they love their pupils at the same time; they teach them love perhaps? :shrug:

Ehh. Probably means they teach the lessons which mean they own authority. Yet they love their pupils at the same time; they teach them love perhaps? :shrug:
lol thanks for attempting it.