The Naked And The Nude Essay Example

of anatomy. In the narrator’s last illustration of the naked body, it is observed as divine and holy through the allusion to a Hindu goddess.

All of these instances of the naked body put it on a pedestal solely because the poet’s word choice. This sets up the contrast to the word nude. In the third stanza, the poet creates as insecure and raw tone. He describes the nude as “bold, sly, treasonable, tricky, and mock-religious. ” Using these words chips away at the pure meaning of the word nude. Graves depicts the nudist’s as being overconfident which implies that they are compensating for the dirty connation that they stand for. The narrator does this to set up a contrast to the word “naked. ” In doing this, he exhibits the cut and dry line between “naked and nude.”

In reality, these words are synonyms and he is trying to stress that semantics play an important role in how we communicate. The tone a word gives off can completely change how we interpret it. Robert Graves’ “The Naked And The Nude” compels us as human being’s to question the importance of word usage. Next time, the reader will be more careful when choosing words to communicate with someone. The implied meaning could prove to be negative or positive based on the structure, allusions, and tone the author uses. So next time, let’s not argue over semantics.