Bishop's Filling Station

Somebody Is Missing

Apr 16, 2009 Matthew Birdsall

The narrative of the poem "Filling Station" by Elizabeth Bishop is saturated with decrepit images of dirt, oil, and masculinity. The silver lining becomes femininity.

Grimy, Little Filling Station

The persona of the poem begins addressing the reader in a casual tone exclaiming how “it is dirty!” (1). Quickly, the persona begins to describe, in detail, the landscape within the bounds of “this little filling station” (2). The persona might promptly be characterized as prim since there is no hesitation when it talks down to the station which is “oil-soaked, oil permeated” (3). This should be no surprise to any audience who has recently gassed up. Gas stations are often dirty and grimy.

Dirty Characters

Within the first line of the second stanza the persona digs deeper into the image and the narrative begins to describe the characters in the story. Male characters including a “Father” (7) dressed appropriately in “a dirty, / oil-soaked monkey suit” (7-8) and his “greasy sons” who “assist him” (11) appear abruptly. The persona seems negative and holier-than-thou because the hardworking men are not looked upon favorably, rather they are “all quite thoroughly dirty” (13). A tinge of feministic underpinnings appears here when the persona uses a sarcastic aside to mention that “(it’s a family filling station)” (12). Stanza 3 shows the setting as “crushed and grease- / impregnated” (17-18) with man’s best friend sitting on a “wicker sofa…quite comfy” (19-20). The sarcasm seems directed at the thought of a “family filling station” without an apparent matriarch.

Comic Relief

In the fourth stanza “Some comic books provide / the only note of color” and assuming that the readership for comics is mostly male an inquisitive mood arises briefly until line 24. On line 24 the persona discusses that the comics lie comfortably on a particularly feminine item: a “doily”. The “doily” voids the comics of masculine symbolism and supplants a womanly touch. Additionally, there is a “taboret” (25) and “a big hirsute begonia” (27), two more feminine items. The prissy persona continues in the following stanza by posing “Why” in reference to the feminine items on lines 28-30. The class of the persona further reveals itself because it notices a “daisy stitch” (31). Evidently, the persona is that of an upper-class individual, who is looking down on the hardworking men of the filling station. Bishop’s “father died when she was eight months old” (http://projects.vassar.edu/bishop) and it may be argued that the persona is her own because this persona is so far removed from these men at the filling station.

Somebody Saves Face

The persona then switches from query to an understated insertion of womanhood. The persona repeats four times in the last stanza on lines 34, 35, 36, and 41 that “Somebody” must have “embroidered the doily” (34) and watered “the plant” (35). “Somebody”? Derision appears again on line 36 because the persona inserts that someone “oils it, maybe” (36), it being the “plant”.

A Solution

Throughout the poem the tone is prim, proper, and clean, yet it is juxtaposed with the imagery, which is dirty and covered in a “black translucency” (5). The persona is detached from this working-class setting of sweat and filth. The items which might be considered effeminate are buried deep in the text and shrouded in ambiguity, and it is the missing character who bears the items that will love “us all” (41). The persona holds “love” (41) in high regard and maybe that “Somebody” is a woman who “loves us all” no matter how dirty we may become.

The copyright of the article Bishop's Filling Station in Poetry is owned by Matthew Birdsall. Permission to republish Bishop's Filling Station in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Elizabeth Bishop

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