Essay Questions

What is meant by the poem’s opening lines about a future free of edges?

The poem begins with an ambiguous abstraction concerning what the future will look like. Even though there will curves, all lines will point forward and without edges. Since this poem does present a vision of the future, it is easy enough to quickly assume these lines refer literally to geometrical design. After all, futuristic design has always been associated with clean lines and soft curves. And, indeed, the imagery may be a reference to the way things will look, but based on what follows, the speaker seems to be discussing things more broadly and metaphorically. The future presented in this narrative is one that has filed away the sharp edges of modern life. People are not judged based on their gender, quality health care does not correlate with one’s ability to afford it, and even the sharp edges of history have been curved by taking out of the books which are not so easily altered to fit new facts. The future is a progressive ideal in which the harshness of the past has been given a new geometrical design.

Why is understanding the definition of the word “sex” essential to the interpretation of one section of this poem?

The speaker declares that in the future she envisions, sex has managed to withstand all threats and reach a point where it exists solely to gratify the mind. This is actually one vision of the future in which the meaning isn’t immediately clear. In fact, even the meaning of the word “sex” isn’t clear. If the speaker is referring to actual sexual activity, this image is so ambiguous as to be abstruse. The key to interpretation doubtlessly lies in the poem’s structure:

“Women will still be women, but

The distinction will be empty. Sex,

Having outlived every threat, will gratify”

When viewed in context, it can be seen that the word “sex” begins a different sentence but is on the same line that concludes the assertion that gender equality will be attained in the future. The word “sex” as the last word in the couplet discussing equality indicates a linkage of ideas. If this is so, then it is not a sexual activity that has outlasted threats, but the division of the sexes. This vision of the future, then, becomes one in which all the old notions of dividing humans along male and female lines will still gratify people who choose to remain committed to thinking that, but it will no longer be applied as a societal doctrine.

What is the author implying with the word “scrutable” about both the future and the present?

This vision of an idealistic future ends with the image of humanity living on a spaceship as it travels through the infinity of space. This new mode of existence is described as one in which humanity will be “once / And for all, scrutable and safe.” Safe is common enough for most readers to understand the meaning, but scrutable is perhaps less familiar. In fact, most people are probably much more familiar with its antonym, inscrutable, which means something that is difficult if not impossible to understand. Scrutable, therefore, means exactly the opposite: something easily comprehended and existing without undue ambiguity. The implication of a future that is “scrutable and safe” is that it has been purposely remade in this fashion. The speaker is not suggesting there is nothing left in the word that remains inscrutable but is slyly implying that much of what is inscrutable to us today is because we don’t comprehend it and not because we can’t comprehend it. And, furthermore, the reason that we don’t comprehend it is that those in charge prefer it that way and work overtime to ensure that we remain confused. Leadership has become the process of keeping the masses ignorant and in this utopian vision of the future that ideology has finally been abandoned. The future is one where humans feel safe because they have been told everything that they need to know, not because they have purposely been kept in the dark.