Essay Example: Rita Dove’s Historical Literature of Parsley

Rita Dove is an amazing black woman with great achievements. She is the daughter of the famous first black research chemist, Elvira Hord. She worked hard in her academics and was awarded a presidential scholarship to visit the White House. Dove’s is famous for her poetry and her collection was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. She was also awarded with 21 doctorates. The NAACP gave her the Great American Artist awards for her outstanding work in 1993. In the same year, she also won an award from the arts and humanities as well as the highest award given to the scholars, the Heinz award from the U.S. government. Currently today she lives in Charles Ville, Virginia with her husband and her daughter while working as a professor at the University of Virginia.

In my analysis of Rita Dove's work, I will be looking at one of her famous poems, Parsley. Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic massacred more than 20,000 Haitians. He ruled over the Dominican Republic for over 30 years and terrorized all the locals. He owned approximately 1,200 acres of sugar fields where the Haitians were exploited and forced into working in these fields. Rafael discovered that the Haitians could not speak the ‘R’ in the Spanish language. Haitians sang songs where they could not roll their tongues and Rafael took the opportunity to single out the Haitians. He then began executions from the word alone. Perejil, or parsley became the forbidden word and any Haitian who could not roll their tongues would be killed. The poem is described figuratively through Dove's unique style of writing. Her writing style consists of topics and themes that explore the concepts of reality and dreams to figuratively open the worlds of history. Her poems often are written in villanelle and free verse. She also uses unique metaphors and symbolism in her work that enhances the tone and the meanings behind each poem. Rita Dove expresses tragic histories through symbolism and metaphors to emphasize the impact that the events have had among the people who have experienced them and those who are unaware.
Through words alone Dove brings us into the world of Haiti. Where sugarcanes rise and mountains move. Her use of figurative language to open up this world is shown to us in this poem. In Rita Dove's Parsley poem, she uses metaphors and symbolism to reveal the parrot’s identity as the grim reaper. Dove uses the parrot repeatedly throughout the poem. Information about the sugar cane fields, El General and parrot is spread across the poem. El General is described as cruel and the sugar cane continues to grow. This led to,“There is a parrot imitating spring” (Dove 19’). The parrot is a metaphor for the sound of chaos and spring is a metaphor for growth and life.

The parrot imitating spring is a symbol for death. On line 18’ of Parsley, “...For every drop of blood / there is a parrot imitating spring.” The hyperbole states that for every person killed, the parsley green bird mocks the growing life. This hints to the reader that the parrot imitating spring is the cause of death. It is death. We can see this referred to again on line 6’ to 7’, “...he is all the world there is. Like a parrot imitating spring”, El General holds life and death in the palms of his hand. The general mocks life the same way the parrot imitates spring, they both bring death. ‘The parrot imitating spring’ is repeated multiple times, leaving an eerie and dark tone upon the reader. As if it is a climbing stair for something terrifying to come up next. The symbolism acts as a double meaning, one figuratively and one literally. The parrot being a metaphor for the sound of chaos enhancing the dark tone and when we see it mocking or pretending to be life, leaving a sense of horror. The symbolism of the parrot imitating spring brings in a dark and heavy tone upon the poem. The metaphor as a parrot being the sound of death and spring being life, it shows us the massacre the dictator of the Dominican Republic has committed. The phrase “there is a parrot imitating spring”, is repeated in every line and is placed after the details of death. Thus becoming a symbol for death.

Death and life lingers between El General and the sugar canes. However, we see that perhaps the general isn’t as cruel as he seems. There is more depth to his character than we see. Rita Dove uses symbolism and metaphor to show his love for his mother in the poem Parsley. In the second part of the poem titled, The Palace, depicts El General’s perspective of the massacre. Speaking of his memories and reminiscence of his mother.
It is fall, when thoughts turn to love and death; the general thinks of his mother, how she died in the fall and he planted her walking cane at the grave and it flowered, each spring solidly forming Four-star blossoms. (23’ to 28’)
Dove metaphorically tells the reader of the ‘cane’ he planted and how it grows into a symbol, the Four Star Bloss