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172 Unit 2 ■ Analyzing Comparisons and Representations Natasha Trethewey ■ Pilgrimage 173 UNIT 2

into history, asking what is to become CHARACTER the importance of memorializing the past or
of all the living things in this place? “the ghost of history,” she also feels that the
1. Who is the speaker? What is the context of the poem? IDEAS IN LITERATURE
This whole city is a grave. Every spring — duty is heavy and restrictive.
20 Pilgrimage — the living come to mingle 2. Identify and explain some present choices that the speaker makes that reveal 6. The setting is described as a place that is
her perspective on the history and the pilgrimage. abandoned and empty yet haunted in the
with the dead, brush against their cold shoulders 3. What are the speaker’s values, background, and beliefs? present by recurring memories of the past.
in the long hallways, listen all night While these places are empty, they are also
STRUCTURE full of visitors like the speaker journeying to
to their silence and indifference, relive
Copyright (c) 2023 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Uncorrected proofs were used with this sample chapter.
their dying on the green battlefield. 4. The beginning of the poem introduces the tension within the poem. What is the Vicksburg and its historic landmarks. The
tension? setting is itself a representation of humanity’s
25 At the museum, we marvel at their clothes — complicated relationship with place, history,
5. Where is there a shift in the poem, and how do you know? What is revealed
preserved under glass — so much smaller war, and the present moment.
through this shift?
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than our own, as if those who wore them 6. Identify and explain how the images of the setting contrast to create meaning in 7. In lines 21–24, the speaker repeats the
were only children. We sleep in their beds, the poem. use of the third-person pronoun “their” to
emphasize that the memorial experiences of
the old mansions hunkered on the bluffs, draped living are originally experiences of the dead.
30 in flowers — funereal — a blur FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Word Choice, Imagery, and Symbols The speaker also uses singular first-person
of petals against the river’s gray. 7. Explain how the pronouns and antecedents in the poem contribute to your pronouns to emphasize her experience as
The brochure in my room calls this interpretation of the poem. an individual, but at the same time notes the
8. Choose an image from the poem and explain how that image contributes to the collective experience of those engaging in
living history. The brass plate on the door reads meaning of the poem. a pilgrimage with her by using plural first-
Prissy’s Room. A window frames person pronouns in lines 25 and 28.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Comparisons 8. Responses may vary. The opening image
35 the river’s crawl toward the Gulf. In my dream,
the ghost of history lies down beside me, 9. Choose a comparison in the poem. Explain the attributes of the of the Mississippi River as a graveyard
introduces the connection between place
characteristics.
rolls over, pins me beneath a heavy arm. and history (especially in relation to the Siege
10. The comparisons in the poem are linked through shared values between the of Vicksburg, where Union forces strategically
speaker and audience. Choose a comparison that demonstrates these shared used the Mississippi River to gain tactical
values. advantage over the Confederacy). The bend
of the river is also important to interpreting
IDEAS IN LITERATURE: Opportunity and Loss the speaker’s concerns: in lines 4–6, the river
11. The poem reflects the loss suffered in Vicksburg, Mississippi, through a shared is likened to someone who turns to forget the
experience at a museum. Consider other museums or memorials that honor city and its history.
fallen soldiers. Explain how the impact of visiting a memorial or museum has 9. Responses may vary. In lines 12–13, the
affected you. speaker imagines that the caves “must have
seemed like catacombs” to Emma Balfour
This image depicts an PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER (the woman referenced in lines 14–18). The
Islamic pilgrimage. 12. The stanzas in this poem shift. Identify and explain how the shift contributes to comparison of the caves to catacombs

What are some other the complex context of the poem and reveals the message of the poem. (underground cemeteries that originate back
to ancient Romans) reimagines the caves as
pilgrimages? Explain a Muhannad Fala’ah/Getty Images a sacred place to memorialize the dead and
contemporary pilgrimage their eternal rest). While the physical location
and the impact of the of caves and catacombs is the same, their
journey. respective functions and others’ perceptions
of them differ.
10. The speaker and the audience both likely
understand that though history happened
in a finite time in the past, its effects linger
in the lives of those in the present. In
03_williamlit1e_46174_ch02_116_207.indd 172 22/09/22 9:47 AM 03_williamlit1e_46174_ch02_116_207.indd 173 22/09/22 9:47 AM lines 32–33, the speaker compares the
SUGGESTED RESPONSES 3. Responses may vary. The speaker values memorials and museums to the concept
TO THE QUESTIONS memorializing history and believes that it of experiencing “living history” or historical
influences and directly impacts the present
1. The speaker is likely the author (or a moment. The speaker also likely has artifacts and places that provide visitors with
fictionalized perspective of the author) connections to Mississippi or the American a unique historical perspective or experience
who journeys to Vicksburg every spring to South as a place and is familiar with the (as though what happened in the past is
remember and bear witness to memories of predominant values and traditions there. continuing to happen in the present).
the past. 11. Responses may vary.
2. With grave reverence, Trethewey memorializes 4. The tension in the poem is between the living 12. Shifts within the poem reveal a ritualistic
and the dead (or the role of past history in the
the history of the Civil War: she describes the present lives of the living). The speaker notes reverence for the past (particularly in regard
statues of “white marble” standing up in place that this tension affects the community as a to the people who fought in the Confederacy,
of the dead, references the words of writer and collective as well as herself as an individual. which lost the American Civil War) so that
Confederate wife Emma Balfour, and likens their memory is not lost or forgotten in the
dead Confederate soldiers to children in lines 5. One of the shifts in the text occurs in the final present. History is both dead and alive.
27–28. The final line of the poem may indicate line of the text (line 37); structurally, it is the
a sense of confinement or restriction from this only line in the text that is not a couplet. This
history. shift reveals that while the speaker believes in

Natasha Trethewey Pilgrimage 173

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