Waiting Room Example Response

[Catchy Opening] Sometimes when children speak, they cut straight to truths that most adults cannot or will not tackle. [Thesis Statement] In the confessional poem, "In the Waiting Room," by Elizabeth Bishop, her precocious seven year-old self suddenly becomes aware of her existence, and she is puzzled and overwhelmed with questions.  Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities made us all just one? Why should you be one? In that moment in the waiting room, we witness a child coming to terms with the "black wave" of confounding awareness, modelling for all readers the necessity of facing the big question of life - what is the point? [Body of ideas/quotes/argument] In the beginning of the poem, the speaker simply describes the ordinary and mundane details of the waiting room. And those "overcoats, lamps and magazines" are familiar to readers; we immerse in a comfortable and familiar environment. But, like our speaker, we are in for a traumatic surprise - the young speaker is about to fall into an existential void, one that adults understand, but avoid dealing with. The source of the crisis is comical, a National Geographic magazine filled with "Long pig[s]," "babies with pointed heads," and "awful hanging breasts." Between the reading of that magazine "right straight through" and the "bright and too hot" dentist's waiting room, the girl bursts "an oh! of pain." That "oh!" is an existential epiphany; it is not the "foolish and timid" aunt that the speaker seems so eager to mock. "It was me." Her awareness is excruciating. She "falls" into what most readers will realize is the "nothing stranger" moment when you see that you are human, "shadowy" and "in it."  She tries, like we all do, to define "it," to peg life down. After all, isn't all that "blue-black" space definable and compartmentalizable? No. At the end of the poem, she slides "beneath a big black wave, another, and another..." [Conclusion] Like all of us, our innocent seven year old speaker has just realized that she is alive and that being alive is miraculous and weird.