Analysis of Linda Pastan's Poem "Ethics"

Thesis: In her poem "Ethics," Pastan leads the reader through an uncomfortable struggle with a value-testing philosophical question.

Pastan uses the structure of her poem to bend the questions so that they are not as easy to answer.

• By leaving "a Rembrandt painting" on the end of line 4, and by enjambing "years left anyhow" in line 6, Pastan highlights the value of one option while devaluing the other.  Since Pastan weighs the nonhuman option more heavily than the human, even though it should seem obvious to value human life over a painting, the reader may struggle with what could otherwise be a very easy question.
• When the speaker's teacher explains that the answerer of the question is solely responsible for the fate of both the woman and the painting, she brings "the burdens of responsibility" onto a separate line, making those burdens more present and more ominous (line 16).  This line break makes the responsibility starker, invoking the immense pressure felt by someone entrusted with the decision to save or end someone's life.

Pastan uses different academic levels of language throughout her poem to simulate growth.  However, the question does not become any easier to answer at the end of the poem.  Pastan portrays the difficulty of answering ethical questions such as this one.

• Toward the beginning of the poem, Pastan uses fairly simple sentence structure, as well as colloquial words such as "anyhow" in order to portray a younger speaker (line 6).
• Later in the poem, Pastan's language becomes more complex; for example, she uses more commas to separate fragments of thought within the same sentence.  The question, however, remains as difficult despite the speaker's increased maturity.

Throughout the poem, Pastan provides detailed images of the two savable objects in question.  By allowing the reader to get to know both the painting and the woman, Pastan makes it hard for the reader to be forced to choose to terminate one of them.

• Sometimes Pastan imagines the old woman to be her own grandmother (line 10).  As the reader pictures his own grandmother, he would never think to end the life of a woman he loves so dearly in favor of some expensive artwork.
• But at the end of the poem, Pastan describes the Rembrandt: she describes its vivid colors, and how it seems to jump out of the canvas and pull the speaker into the world of the painting.  As the reader depicts it, he would rather not allow this beautiful work of art to burn into ashes.
• Pastan further enhances the reader's love for the painting by separating her description of it from the image of her grandmother by a whopping 9 lines.  This allows the image of the reader's grandmother to fade slightly, just as the beautiful image of the painting comes into view.