Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg: An Analysis of the Remembrance of History in “Pilgrimage” Addie Stone College

Natasha Trethewey often writes about the relationship we have with the past, a shared history that many wish to remember and forget at the same time. This internal conflict of memory presents itself throughout “Pilgrimage” in unexpected contrasts, lugubrious imagery, and glaring reminders of the fact that the powerful in society have the privilege of choosing what version of history the nation publicly recalls. Throughout the poem, Trethewey utilizes weighty and often uncomfortable sensations of deadliness, entrapment, and burial as well as personal inclusion in “Pilgrimage” to stress that the way people memorialize Southern history goes beyond a matter of personal choice and appreciation; for those that have less of a say in the national narrative, this remembrance extends into their ability to reclaim the valid experiences of their ancestors whom the historical events regularly negatively affected. This tactic of morbidity advances the authors aim of emphasizing the need to reexamine how people remember the past.

Almost instantly, Trethewey takes iconic imagery and juxtaposes it in a way that evokes a creeping feeling of unexpected bereavement and death. The Mississippi River, often invoked in poetry and literature as a...