24 pages • 48 minutes read
Ocean VuongEurydice
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Deer
Female deer, called does, reoccur throughout "Eurydice." The speaker opens with a deer shot in the heart. Their lover's name makes them envision a dead doe in the moonlight. The poem ends on hooves.
Hunters commonly target deer, making the deer an apt symbol for marginalized groups trying to avoid persecution. Deer frequently travel through backyards and gardens. When the speaker says they "kept walking through the hole / in the garden" (Lines 8-9), they subtly compare them to deer moving through that space.
Vuong makes the deer inherently tragic. They appear as omens: "It's more like the sound / a doe makes / when the arrowhead replaces the day" (Lines 1-4). The speaker says they and their companion saw it coming. However, they make the statement ominous by adding "but" (Line 7). The “but” signals a disconnect between their knowledge and choice while emphasizing its importance to events later in the poem. Later, the speaker compares their lover's name to a dead deer right before gravity breaks their knees, and denounces love.
The poem's final lines reverse the image order, with the tragedy coming before the deer imagery. This decision drives home that the deer represents love's end and a disconnect between lovers. The “him” yells for the girl but overlooks the "frosted grass / snapping beneath her hooves" beside him (Line 31-32). She steps closer to him, so she wants to be with him. He calls for her. Yet neither bridge their disconnect—she does not answer, he does not see or hear. The deer image closing the poem foretells more tragedies to come.
Light and Shadow
Darkness and light are not separate and opposing entities in "Eurydice." Instead, they interconnect and cannot exist without one another. Their interplay and position determine their appearance.
In his essay for The Paris Review, Vuong links darkness with imagination and queerness: "I make it so dark we could be anything, even more than what we were born into. We could be human," Vuong wrote. The darkness inspires the speaker with new ways to describe their lover.
The poem links darkness and light to knowledge, insight, and perception. It allows the speaker to see a particular side of their lover, the environment they travel through and from, and what they saw coming.
However, this knowledge is not total and does not guarantee success. Despite knowledge of danger and limits, they kept walking through the hole and eventually ran into crippling gravity.
Sound, Listening, and Miscommunication
Listening and communication play an essential role in “Eurydice.” The poem directly addresses a “you.” The speaker is trying to make their companion understand their point of view.
The poem begins with a doe’s dying sound. Despite directly describing the sound, the opening image reeks of miscommunication. The speaker does not inform their partner or the reader about the “It […]” they compare to a deer. The comparison jumps from image to image. The poem begins with the logical image of “the sound / a doe makes / when the arrowhead” (Lines 1-3). However, the arrowhead strikes the day, replacing it “with an answer” (Lines 3-5). Then the poem returns to the physical body, and the answer responds or replaces “the rib’s hollowed / hum” (Lines 5-7). While how the imagery transforms makes sense, the quick change between four different concepts—the “it,” the deer, the day, an answer—forces the reader to untangle it.
After this comparison, the poem still does not fully explain. The speaker says that “We saw it coming” (Line 7). Using “it” again leaves it unclear if the speaker refers to the initial “it,” the day, or the deer.
The following reference to the sound comes when the poem fuses sound with sight. The speaker says that depending on where their lover stands, their name invokes “a full moon / shredded in a dead doe’s pelt” (Line 18). Both these images involve sight, yet the speaker says the companion’s name “sounds” like the image. Through the word “sound,” the speaker demonstrates speech and listening as the primary way they communicate with their partner.
Nevertheless, an abundance of sound does not guarantee reception. The speaker speaks, yet their voice cracks after the attack. Radio static sounds like breaking bones, pushing forward that physical trauma creates lasting emotional trauma. The emotional trauma makes it hard to communicate with other people.
“I thought a little chord / was all it took,” says the speaker. The chord, a musical arrangement, refers to the idea that talking through the trauma is enough to make their partner understand. Despite their attempts, the speaker still finds themselves in the field with a “him” “calling for the girl” even as she stands beside him (Line 33).
Related Titles
By Ocean Vuong
