Shut Out By Christina Rossetti

Read the Poem Rossetti composed Shut Out in 1856 and in 1862, included it in the first, non- devotional, half of her first volume, Goblin Market and Other Poems. Discuss the following questions… How sympathetic do you feel towards the speaker? What surprises you about the situation the poem describes? What is the effect of being shut out, rather than shut in somewhere? Do you think that the predicament of being shut out can be considered in the same way as the predicament of being imprisoned?

Synopsis The speaker recalls that s/he was once happy, existing in a beautiful garden and enjoying the company of song-birds, moths and bees. For a reason that is not given, s/he is shut out from this garden and the only comfort that s/he can find comes from looking through the ‘iron bars' that separate him/her from it. When s/he asks the ‘shadowless spirit' who guards the gate of the garden whether s/he can have ‘some buds' for comfort, he refuses and builds a wall so that the garden can no longer be glimpsed at all. The poem ends with the speaker sitting alone and grieving for what has been lost. Although s/he notices violets budding nearby, they provide little solace since the speaker still retains the knowledge that what has been lost was much better.

The Identity of the Speaker The identity of the speaker is not given in the poem. Given the associations that are created between the garden she looks into and the Garden of Eden, the possibility that the speaker is Eve can be inferred. According to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, the Garden of Eden is the place in which God placed his first human creatures, Adam and Eve. It is depicted as a beautiful garden, also called Paradise. In it stood the Tree of Knowledge, the only tree whose fruit Adam and Eve were forbidden by God to eat. As they failed to obey, they were expelled from Eden and a guard was set on the east side of the Garden (Genesis 2:8-10; Genesis 2:15; Genesis 3:23-24). The image of a desirable garden from which those who are disobedient are shut out has since become central in Western literature.

Eve In a later poem, entitled Eve, Rossetti reflects on the situation of Eve as she sits outside the Garden of Eden and mourns what she has lost. The poem begins: While I sit at the door Sick to gaze within Mine eye weepeth sore For sorrow and sin (lines 1-4) Despite the similarities between this depiction and the description in Shut Out of the speaker ‘Blinded with tears' (line 22), it is likely that the fact of leaving the speaker's identity open to individual interpretation means that it is easier for the reader to identify with him/her. Since ‘Shut Out’ is not included in the devotional section of ‘Goblin Market and Other Poems’, interpreting the speaker in terms of the Bible is not the only way in which it can be understood.

Discuss… List all the points of ambiguity that you can identify in the poem What is the effect of the uncertainty that the poem creates? How likely do you think it is that Rossetti intended the speaker of the poem to be interpreted as Eve?

Imagery and Symbolism Discuss the significance/connotations of the following… The door Iron bars The garden The wall Violets The lark

The Door The poem begins, ‘The door was shut'. Instead of being trapped in, the door shuts the speaker out of a place of happiness. Doors usually suggest opening and closing rather than permanent closure. It also indicates a process of selection as to whom may enter.

The Iron Bars The door is described as having iron bars through which the speaker can glimpse the garden from which s/he has been excluded. The description of ‘iron bars' is suggestive of confinement, hardness and permanence. Unlike wood, iron is difficult to break through. The allusion to peeping through the bars suggests that they are close together and make it hard to see clearly.

The Garden Throughout her devotional poetry and particularly in her final volume, Verses, Rossetti describes paradise in terms of a garden. In her poem, The Holy City, New Jerusalem (which she uses to open the seventh section of Verses, New Jerusalem and its Citizens) she depicts the garden of paradise where the righteous will rejoice after the process of being washed clean by Christ: Jerusalem a garden is, A garden of delight; Leaf, flower and fruit make fair her trees, Which see not day or night: Beside her River clear and calm The tree of Life grows with the Palm, For triumph and for food and balm. (lines 15-21)

Gardens, greenery and pastures are a feature of many of the poems Rossetti includes in Goblin Market and Other Poems: Like Shut Out, these poems reflect a sense of fragility and highlight the mortality or fragility of human existence. In Shut Out, there is no hint of the foliage fading and the word ‘all' suggests that the flowers were not subject to seasonal change.

The Wall The speaker recounts how the spirit who kept the gate ‘took/ Mortar and stone to build a wall' (line 17-18). The reason for this is so that the garden may no longer be seen. The wall is presented as a threatening feature and represents a more permanent barrier than the door which still had the potential to be opened or looked through. It cuts the speaker off from his/her old home forever, forcing a confrontation with the speaker's current circumstances.

Violets Many Victorians were aware of the ancient flower symbolism in which violets are emblems of faithfulness. However, Rossetti also associates violets with death in her poem, ‘Roses blushing red and white’. This association corresponds to the final verse of ‘Shut Out’ where the speaker looks in a state of depression upon a violet bed. S/he sees that although the violets in bud are ‘good', they are ‘not the best' (line 27).

The lark The speaker notices that close by where s/he sits in a state of depression, ‘a lark has made her nest' in the violet bed. A lark is a bird often associated with energy, hope and life. Its appearance to the speaker can therefore be seen to bring hope and comfort to his/her situation.

Vision List all the references to sight, vision and blindness that you can find in the poem What is the effect that these references create?

Sight The speaker claims that, once exiled from the garden, the only comfort comes from peering through the bars in the door. Once his/her ‘straining eyes' (line 20) can no longer see through the loopholes, s/he falls into a state of despair, ‘Blinded with tears' (line 22). The Bible contains many references to blindness. These can mean literal physical lack of sight (Luke 14:13) or a spiritual inability to perceive either the truth or God (Matthew 23:16-26). Read within this framework and considering the narrative of the Garden of Eden, the speaker's blindness can be related to Adam and Eve's loss of relationship with God. Just as they lost the close physical intimacy with God that they had enjoyed when they were shut out from the Garden of Eden, so the speaker becomes acutely isolated on being shut out from his/her own garden. However, the Bible also portrays Jesus as a ‘second Adam' who reinstates the possibility of reconciliation with God and thereby ‘opens the gate' to heaven / paradise. In the light of this, the speaker believes that, one day, there will be the chance of re-entering the poem's garden (l.16).

Language and Tone Assonance The long ‘I' recurring in the first stanza emphasises the sense of personal loss experienced by the speaker. In the second stanza, the ease of movement and vivacity of the garden is helped by the repeated OW words and short O sounds. Sibilance in these lines also helps the flow of words. The silence of the spirit The speaker only recalls his/her words to the spirit guard. ‘Shadowless and blank' (lines 9, 10), he does not engage but seals up the door, physically demonstrating the alienation of the speaker from the garden. The non-responsiveness of the guard intensifies the speaker's feeling of loneliness and isolation. The lament of the speaker The speaker's own voice is presented as mournful and lamenting. The pleas to be given buds and a twig from the garden and to be remembered by it, are plaintive but also direct, conveyed by the alliteration of plosive Bs. The speaker's tone is direct and immediate in claiming, ‘now I sit here quite alone' (line 21). Despite the hope that s/he will return to the garden (line 16), the speaker expresses an inability to enjoy life.

Discuss Do you think that the speaker's hope that she will return to the garden is genuine? Why do you think that the spirit remains silent? What is the effect of his silence? To whom do you think the poem is directed? Or do you consider it as a representation of the speaker's private thoughts?

Structure and verse Form Rhyme The rhyme scheme of each verse runs abba. This rhyme scheme suggests enclosure and reflects the tight control with which the speaker contains overwhelming emotions. The strong masculine rhymes draw attention to the enclosed patterning. Instead of the more usual, ballad-like abab rhyme scheme which is often used in a poem that tells a story, the abba rhyme does not suggest progression but instead alludes to the state stillness of the speaker who feels that s/he is not moving forwards or growing but, rather, remaining in one place.

Eye rhyme (a similarity between words in spelling but not in pronunciation, for example love and move) By choosing to use words which contain two O's to discuss sight and vision, Rossetti draws attention to the visual impact of the poem. By associating the words ‘door' and ‘looked' (line 1), she highlights the dilemma of the speaker as she is only able to look through the opening to the garden rather than to enter it. Later, by using eye rhyme to link the words ‘loophole' and ‘look' (lines 19-20), Rossetti suggests that any vision that we can have of what is beyond our current circumstances is somewhat limited as it must be glimpsed through loopholes. In the sixth verse, Rossetti uses an eye rhyme to link the words ‘alone' and ‘gone'. Just as the word ‘alone' suggests isolation, by not providing it with a perfect rhyme she hints at the disjointedness of the speaker's thoughts as she becomes more and more distraught.

Rhythm The regular iambic tetrameter of the poem reflects both the monotony of the speaker's situation and its narrative elements. The inversion of the first foot in the second line of stanzas 3, 5 and 6 particularly conveys the harsh realities confronted by the speaker

Caesurae The full stop in the middle of the first line conveys the sense of finality that the shutting of the door creates and emphasises the break that has been created to separate the past of the present. The semi-colon in the second line visually re-creates the gap through which the speaker looks. As the gap between the full-stop and the comma divides the description of the iron bars from a description of the peaceful garden, it also highlights the link between the two. In the third line, the two commas serve to divide the ‘mine', the persona of the speaker, from the garden that s/he has come to understand as being his/her own. The pauses that the commas create reflect the sense of uncertainty that the speaker feels in continuing to be identified with the garden. In the following verse, we learn that although the garden had been ‘home', it is now lost to him/her (line 8). The lack of any caesurae on the fourth line highlights the lack of disruption that occurs in the heavenly garden. Lush, greensand filled with flowers, the growth of the garden does not stop after the departure of the speaker.

Repetition Which words are repeated? Why do you think Rossetti wants to draw attention to these particular words?

Interpretations Although the poem at first seems an obvious Biblical allegory relating to Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden and thus instructing us to avoid temptation and live devout lives, I prefer to interpret it in the complete opposite way. I see this poem as an analogy for Rossetti’s self imposed denial from experiencing earthly pleasure and fulfilment. Her garden is seen as bright, beautiful and fertile and yet it is her decision to embrace a life of devotion that sees her barred from entry and builds a wall to cut off any dream or image of this forfeited life.