Stamp Collecting Essay Example

the second stanza, the narrator’s illustration becomes more complex.

From simple images that she discussed in the first stanza, she also added human resources and tourism spots of the countries that she is referring to. She illustrated how the creator of the stamps combined simple profession into a cultural tradition – by adding up different ornaments or beautiful colors within the background or within the body of the person that exists in the stamp or postcard. The narrator stated in the third stanza that all the stamps and post cards that came from poor countries are simple; it is already a fulfillment for a third-world country to show their culture’s indigenous or unique beauty.

Through this, they have the dignity and pride of being a significant country despite of economic circumstances. The last stanza became the narrator’s conclusion. She has shown that despite of the beauty that these countries have portrayed, they still continue to be stagnant and hard to bear. This is the justification of the author as he used literary images such as statues, marbles, and monuments as significations of hardness and unjust situation of the countries. Based on how the narrator discussed his feelings, she is the stamp collector in the poem.

She showed what she perceived in those stamps that she already collected. However, she wanted to impose this perspectives and ideas to the tourists as well as the concerned countries that used their stamps to nurture their tourism institutions. Nevertheless, despite of the narrator’s obtainment of the beauty of the countries she discussed, she pulled the string of these countries’ dwelling-place. At the end of the poem, she stated that tourism is not

the only way to acquire economic power.

It only shows that there is a taint of political justifications that exists in the whole poem. In terms of the construction of the poem, the author used the free-verse composition without rhythm and rhyme. It was not a regular meter because the author focused her attention to the content of the poem and not with the overall construction of the verse. Based on my own understanding of the whole poem, it encompasses transformation of mood from one stanza to the other that moulds the whole verse into a depiction of culture and identity of the countries.