This Is Just To Say

This Is Just To Say Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The speaker uses a first-person perspective and is likely representative of Williams himself. He appears to be addressing his wife. He expresses remorse about eating the plums but also describes their enjoyable taste in detail.

Form and Meter

The poem is written in free verse. It has no meter or rhyme scheme. It is made up of three quatrains.

Metaphors and Similes

N/A

Alliteration and Assonance

Alliteration is present in the S sounds of the line "so sweet."

Irony

N/A

Genre

Imagist poetry

Setting

The poem is set in a kitchen.

Tone

The poem's tone is straightforward and regretful.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist is the speaker.

Major Conflict

The main conflict of the poem is the speaker feeling guilty about eating someone else's plums, having enjoyed them very much.

Climax

The climax of the poem occurs when the speaker asks to be forgiven and remembers the taste of the plums.

Foreshadowing

The speaker saying he has eaten the plums in the first stanza foreshadows his later apology for having done so.

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

N/A

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

N/A

Hyperbole

The speaker frames the eating of the plums as the committing of a crime or significant moral infraction.

Onomatopoeia

N/A

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