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Skunk Hour - Papers Online

Skunk Hour

Frustration’s Armored Aroma
by Robert Lowell and The Armadillo by Elizabeth Bishop are two closely related poems. Both share the theme of an animal carrying with it natural defenses, and the image of an isolated spectator. However, there is one important contrast between these poems: The Armadillo portrays a creature who cannot comprehend the events destroying the life about it, whereas the speaker in understands, possibly too well, the events affecting its life.
By using the skunk as a descriptive element for his character, Robert Lowell increases the distance between the character and the brief glimpse of society portrayed in the poem. Skunks, generally, are avoided by ...

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speaker.
In addition, Robert Lowell portrays his character as something akin to a stalker, illustrated in the following excerpt.
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull;
I watched for love-cars.
(Lowell 25-27)

Why would anyone be out alone, searching for lovers who do not desire intrusion? The
speaker answers this question in the second half of the stanza.

Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town…
My mind’s not right.
(Lowell 27-30)

Here, the speaker admits his actions are wrong. Later in this paper, the fact that the speaker in Skunk Hour is lonely will become an important contrast to the character in The Armadillo.
At the end of the poem, Lowell contrasts as well as likens the character to the nocturnal skunk.

Nobody’s here –

only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat
(Lowell 36-38)

Like the skunks of the ...

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Skunk Hour. (2007, December 30). Retrieved January 29, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Skunk-Hour/76698

"Skunk Hour." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 30 Dec. 2007. Web. 29 Jan. 2026. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Skunk-Hour/76698>

"Skunk Hour." Essayworld.com. December 30, 2007. Accessed January 29, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Skunk-Hour/76698.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 12/30/2007 03:48:14 PM
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 814
Pages: 3

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