The Emperor of Ice Cream Literary Elements

An omniscient imperative voice, giving commands (Call / bid / let / etc.) as a sort of master of ceremonies for the wake. Someone who bridges the gap between the kitchen scene and the bedroom scene.

Two eight-line stanzas. Loose iambic meter, usually four to five beats (stressed syllables) per line. Unrhymed except for three perfect couplets: "seem / ice-cream," "come / dumb," "beam / ice-cream."

"concupiscent curds" - the ice cream stands in for sexual desire

Alliteration / consonance:

"kitchen cups concupiscent curds" - repeated hard /c/ or /k/ sounds

"dawdle in such dress" - double /d/ sound

"dresser of deal"

"Let the lamp"

Assonance:

"big cigars" - double short /i/ vowel, and internal rhyme of "big" and "cig"

"bid him whip" - triple short /i/ vowel evokes swift, firm action

"be be finale of seem" - repeated long /e/ vowel, stretches the line out sonically

The boys and girls in the kitchen are highly ironic figures in that they are playful and flirtatious during a funeral occasion. The flowers meant to be offerings to the dead woman take on a different meaning as icons of romance.

The contrast between the two stanzas, between kitchen and corpse, is also a form of dramatic irony. The liveliness of the kitchen, and the inertness of the dead body, both appear in striking clarity due to their stark contrast, and the fact that the cigar roller and the children appear to be totally oblivious of the mournful event transpiring in the next room.

The title line, finally, is an ironic contradiction: we would not associate ice cream with the majestic title of “emperor.” In asserting the supremacy of this mundane delicacy, the poem simultaneously cheapens our reverence of life, and also makes the rather epicurean claim that everyday enjoyments are the most important thing in life.

Modernist poetry

A home, interior. In the first stanza, a kitchen teeming with guests, mostly young people. In the second stanza, an unknown room, possible a bedroom, where a dead woman's body is laid out.

Whimsical in a deeply ironic way. The luxurious joy of the first stanza is tempered by the crude, direct lines about the dead body in the second stanza. Out of this whimsical juxtaposition comes an assertion of a deep life philosophy.

Youthful joy and delight in life, vs. the specter of death

The children dawdling and eating ice cream in the kitchen try to avoid the reality of the death that has taken place. The speaker tries to make sense of the harsh reality of the death, in the context of life going merrily on.

The poem builds tension through the contrast of life and death, between the two stanzas. This tension reaches a climax in the last two lines, which repeat the earlier assertion that material life and joy reign supreme.

Only a few details in stanza one hint at the somber occasion of the poem revealed in stanza two: we might guess at a sense of mourning and time passing from the “flowers in last month’s newspapers.” The assertion that “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream” also carries an underlying contrast with the notion of death as the ultimate “emperor” or master of human life.

The spreading sheet over the woman’s face, and the line “how cold she is, and dumb,” are the only indications that she is dead. These lines emphasize the plain, understated fact of the death.

“The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream” may reference Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 4. Hamlet, talking to Claudius, argues that worms are ultimately superior to humans in the food chain: “Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.” The allusion is only speculated, but the phrase “only emperor” and the ironic contrast of the poem’s line with Hamlet’s establishes a clear similarity.

n/a

“Let the lamp affix its beam”: the lamp is given the agency to affix its own beam. The lamp becomes a participating character in shedding light (literally) on the stark reality of death.

The “emperor of ice-cream” is a form of hyperbole in that the poem elevates ice cream to the status of a grand overlord.

“whip” – evokes the swift action and sound of creating the ice cream