An Obstacle

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1884

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“An Obstacle” is a parable, or short poetic narrative that teaches the reader a lesson. Perkins Gilman has been characterized as didactic rather than poetic; this means she preferred to teach lessons rather than explore aesthetics or beauty. In an 1896 interview, Perkins Gilman referred to her book of poetry as “a tool box. It was written to drive nails with” (from the introduction of In This Our World & Uncollected Poems, edited by Scharnhorst and Knight).

“An Obstacle” utilizes a consistent rhyme scheme and plays with formal structures of poems that have six-line stanzas, which are called sestets or sestines. The rhyme scheme is ABCBDB; it includes three rhymed lines alternated with lines that do not rhyme. Rather than the most common form of poetry that includes six-line stanzas—the sestina, which Perkins Gilman uses in other poems—“An Obstacle” includes eight stanzas. The turn of the poem occurs at the end of stanza six. The speaker is only able to overcome her obstacle in the seventh and eighth stanzas, showing that breaking with formal, mostly male-written and male-enforced rules is a key to overcoming prejudice. Women like Perkins Gilman and her speaker build upon the poetic—and symbolically social—structures men created.

The meter of “An Obstacle” is irregular, giving the poem a conversational tone. According to Scharnhorst and Knight, editors of In This Our World & Uncollected Poems, Perkins Gilman “was indebted to Whitman for the increasingly irregular scansion and informal tone of her poetry” (xxiv). The lines of her poetry sounding like regular speech complements the parable form; using conversational language makes it easy for the reader to follow the story she is telling.

Personification

Personification—imbuing nonhuman ideas with human traits—is a key literary device in the lesson of overcoming prejudice in “An Obstacle.” The speaker repeatedly mentions that Prejudice is sitting before her, blocking her path. Prejudice, as an embodied male character, “sat” in Lines 12, 24, and 30—the lines that end stanzas two, four, and five. The turn of the poem, and the extension of it beyond a clean six-six configuration (six stanzas with six lines each), happens in the first line of stanza seven, Line 37, where the speaker is the one who “sat.” This physical action underlies the speaker’s ability to deconstruct the personification of prejudice and view him as a disembodied spirit. In mirroring his physical stance, she invites inspiration from nature, and gains the power to walk right through the obstacle of prejudice.

Rhetorical Strategies

The speaker in “An Obstacle” displays a variety of rhetorical strategies, or methods of persuasion, when trying to overcome Prejudice. The first method she tries comes from Hume’s polite rhetoric—she speaks “politely” (Line 13), demonstrating her good manners and attempting to appeal to common courtesy. When this fails, she keeps a level head and utilizes a rhetorical strategy from Aristotle: logos or appealing to logic. When, once again, she fails, she tries a different kind of strategy from Aristotle, pathos, or appealing to emotion. Gilman describes how the speaker “howled and swore” (Line 26), abandoning reason and intellectual argumentation and entering a register of obscenities and mere sounds.

In her next attempt to persuade prejudice to move out of her path, the speaker practices obeisance. Obeisance is formal, physical deference to someone in a position of power, usually royalty or God. She genuflects, or kneels, and begs Prejudice to move, showing herself as humble before him. However, this too is unsuccessful.

The strategy that works in the end is having an “absent-minded air” (Line 46), which can be described as indifference or detachment. This strategy, and Perkins Gilman’s didactic poetic form, resembles Buddhist and Daoist teachings: Letting go, rather than negotiating, is emphasized in both philosophies.