18 pages • 36 minutes read
Making a Fist
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Symbols & Motifs
The Drum
The drum in “Making a Fist” is a symbol of the speaker’s life. She describes “the life sliding out of [her]” (Line 2) as “a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear” (Line 3). The “drum” (Line 3) fading in the distance could symbolize the rhythm of the speaker’s heartbeat or breath. Both are considered the source of life within people, and their fading rhythm symbolizes her “life sliding out of [her]” (Line 2). The “drum” (Line 3) could also symbolize the dizzying, faint feeling the speaker has while experiencing car sickness. When someone is experiencing carsickness, they often feel as though they could pass out, and everything fades into the background. The speaker believes she is dying and feels as though her “life” (Line 2) is leaving her, just as a “drum” (Line 3) fades in the distance.
The Car
In “Making a Fist,” the speaker is “[lying] in the car” (Line 4) while driving with her mother as a child. In the third stanza, years later, the car shifts from a tangible setting to a metaphoric one when the speaker says she is “still lying in the backseat behind all [her] questions” (Line 16). The car ride is symbolic of a suspension between two places. While traveling as a child, the speaker has been “traveling for days” (Line 9); though she is physically moving, she is between where she started and the place where she and her mother are driving. Later, as an adult, she still connects her adult self with her child self in the car. The car becomes symbolic of passage, connecting with the “borders we must cross separately” (Line 13). The speaker must individually experience carsickness, growing up, and death. Therefore, years later she still feels she is “lying in the backseat” (Line 16). Though she is older, she does not have all the answers to life’s questions and can slip back into that childhood situation of limbo.
Making a Fist
The title of this poem, “Making a Fist,” comes from the dialogue between the mother and speaker in the second stanza. The speaker asks, “How do you know if you are going to die?” (Line 7) Her mother responds, saying “When you can no longer make a fist” (Line 11). The “fist” (Line 11) acts as a tangible way for the speaker to remind herself she is still living; it may be a trick to steer her mind from her sick stomach and swirling mind to focus on something else. Thus, “[making] a fist” (Line 11) is symbolic of life. The speaker can feel her hand moving into a closed position, and because her body is moving it means she is alive. “Years later” (Line 12), the speaker still feels like her child self, “clenching and opening one small hand” (Line 17). The “fist” (Line 11) also serves as a symbolic connection between the speaker and her mother—a gesture passed between generations.
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By Naomi Shihab Nye
