Review of Feast (Part 2)

Review of Feast

The poem “Feast” written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, belongs to the Modern Poetry of English Literature. Experience of poverty was a hall mark in the life of Edna. So Millay’s poem “Feast” is a good example for her blending of poverty.

 America is a country, rich with an overabundance of food and drink. There are times when tons and tons of wheat flour are dumped in the sea merely to maintain high prices in the world market while the poor in both America and elsewhere starve. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem ‘Feast’ is her protest against such meaningless waste, while people starve all over the world.

Feast is an event where food and drinks are distributing in a large scale. The poem narrates a story of hunger and thirst. Poet is so familiar with the process of producing wine. Wine is a major drink in a feast.  Millay highlighting wine in many ways. Although the working class produced wine, they are deprived of the outcome of their work. But upper class feast on the production of lower class. The another thing Millay highlight is the best wine is thirst. When we don’t have something we feel it valuable.  Likewise, the poem brings out different ideas.

The themes discussed through the poem are,

·         The social disparity between the upper class and the working class

·    The ironic situation that working class is deprived of their production

·      In equal distribution of resources between the rich and the poor

·       Social inequality

·      Sarcastically criticising how the rich people feast on the production of the poor while poor are starving

·        Lack of something which gives value to it 

The techniques used in the poem are,

·         Lyrical form

·         First person point of view

·         Use of food imageries such as wine, grapes, beans

·         Use of symbolism

-          Grapes and beans symbolising production

-          Vintner and monger symbolising the commercial class

·         Tone of irony and sarcasm

·         Use of regular rhyming scheme