The Man Under The Bed by Erica Jong: poem analysis

This is an analysis of the poem The Man Under The Bed that begins with:

The man under the bed
The man who has been there for years waiting...

Elements of the verse: questions and answers

The information we provided is prepared by means of a special computer program. Use the criteria sheet to understand greatest poems or improve your poetry analysis essay.

  • Rhyme scheme: XXXabcXbc dXbbXbecedcd XaaXX
  • Stanza lengths (in strings): 9,12,5,
  • Closest metre: trochaic pentameter
  • Сlosest rhyme: no rhyme
  • Сlosest stanza type: sonnet
  • Guessed form: unknown form
  • Metre: 011001 0111011010 0111111011 01101011010010 01110010011101 0111011111101 010010111010 0100010110011 01101001001 1110111111 1100101001 1011110010 1101111110 10111101011 10100101010 1100100111 1011100111 1111 1110100111 1110111010 11101001011 0111101100110 0111001101011 11110111010 110001 111
  • Amount of stanzas: 3
  • Average number of symbols per stanza: 367
  • Average number of words per stanza: 73
  • Amount of lines: 26
  • Average number of symbols per line: 41 (medium-length strings)
  • Average number of words per line: 8

  • Mood of the speaker:

    The punctuation marks are various. Neither mark predominates.

  • The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image; man, who, whose, of, he, me, my are repeated.

    The poet used anaphora at the beginnings of some neighboring lines. The same words the, he, we, i are repeated.

If you write a school or university poetry essay, you should Include in your explanation of the poem:

  • summary of The Man Under The Bed;
  • central theme;
  • idea of the verse;
  • history of its creation;
  • critical appreciation.

Good luck in your poetry interpretation practice!

More information about poems by Erica Jong

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