Poetry Response 2

I found the poem "Disillusionment at Ten O'Clock" really interesting. I liked the first image, "The houses are haunted/ By white night-gowns," because it gives the reader a picture of the scene: a dark house with people silently walking throught the houses, barely visible in their flowing ghost-like nightgowns. It sets a somber and monotoned feel for the rest of the poem. I also liked how Stevens then contrasted this idea by describing with some detail how colorful and patterened the nightgowns are not; how uniform and common they are. I didn't know what the word "ceintures" meant, so I looked it up. It means "a belt or sash for the waist" according to Dictionary.com. The fact that they are beaded made me think less of actual night-gowns as one might wear to bed, but more of priests, who wear beaded shashes around their waists. This changed my interpretation of the poem. it could either literally be describing priests, or just making a comment about society in Stevens time, and how most people were so strictly devoted to christianity, and figuratively wore it to bed as a sash around their waists, even though it told them to be plain, loyal, and just like everyone else.Either of these made more sense when I read the second half of the poem, that talks about how none of these plain night-gown wearers will have exciting or creative dreams, and how "an old sailor/ Drunk and asleep in his boots" (most likely referring to sinners) will. I think the whole poem's message is about how society stifles people and diminishes their potential--similar to what we were talking about in class with "A Work of Artifice." Initially when I read this poem the last two lines stuck out to me; they didn't seem to fit with the rest of it. After coming to the conclusion that the message of the poem was about society and religion, I decided that "Chasing tigers" probably refers to dreams and goals the sinner can "chase," but the society-smothered cannot. And I thought "In red weather" meant something about the sinner having a sort of tempestuous life, referring to the weather, and the weather being red because it is often a color associated with the command to stop (which the sinner does not), something bad or incorrect (as "chasing tigers" would be seen by society), or even the devil, which obviously would make "red weather" frowned upon as well. So although the sinner may not be accepted by society, he is still free to dream of his full potential, even though being an outcast of society might prevent his dreams to come to fruition.