Exploring "A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts"

A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts

by Wallace Stevens

The difficulty to think at the end of the day

When the shapeless shadow covers the sun

And nothing is left except light on your fur--

There was the cat slopping its milk all day,

Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk

And August the most peaceful month.

To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,

Without the monument of cat,

The cat forgotten in the moon;

And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,

In which everything is meant for you,

And nothing need be explained;

Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;

And east rushes west and west rushes down,

No matter, the grass is full

And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,

The whole of the wideness of night is for you,

A self that touches all edges,

You become a self that fills the four corners of the night.

The red cat hides away in the fur-light

And there you are humped high, humped up,

You are humped higher and higher, black as stone--

You sit with your head like a carving in space

And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

Wallace Stevens' poem A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts serves as a metaphor for the human condition within the dream state. Just as a rabbit lives in fear of its predators and longs for the time of day wherein he may take a rest from the strenuous task of avoiding predation, so also do people long for their time of rest where they no longer have to worry about what dangers or obligations lie around the corner. They enter their dream land in deep sleep where everything exists merely for them.

The first stanza of the poem alludes to that time where the day is ending and a sense of calm covers the earth. Stevens' diction calls to mind a feeling of melting as the structures of a stressful day dissolve into dreamlike peace. The only thing that remains is a gentle lightness that is relief.

The next stanza is a review of the fears of the day. The cat is representative of the ordinary stresses of the daytime: work, studies, survival in general. The colors emphasize the detail with which one sees one's fears, just as a prey animal views from a distance its known predator, observing it even until it understands its mind.

As the poem progresses, a sense of peace overcomes the detailed worry of the rabbit, representative of the peace that is offered by sleep. As the sun sets, the world is transformed into a place that is free of the fears that had so plagued humanity during the daytime. The memories fade into the background as the sense of peace pervades the stillness until there only remains one's own world, the world of dreams. Stevens' poem recalls the sentiment expressed by Joseph Conrad in his novella Heart of Darkness: "We live, as we dream alone." Within one's dream world, everything is, in fact, meant only to effect the dreamer. Dreams take the thoughts and imaginings of life and bring them together into a world that is not required to make the sense that daytime requires. The images and feelings fall together in a way that can only be expressed as a dream.

Within this ghost world, the dreamer is present in all things. "The whole of the wideness of night is for you/A self that touches all edges, /You become a self that fills the four corners of the night," (Lines 17-19). Unlike the waking world, the dream world is completely made up of only one person's existence. The night becomes fully one's own.

As the dreamer is pulled deeper and deeper into the land of dreams, the fears of the day recede into near oblivion. What once seemed a great thing to dread has become "a bug in the grass."

As an American Modernist, Wallace Stevens takes it upon himself to explore the workings of the human mind and the conditions that lead to these mechanics. Through A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts, Stevens delves into the relief experienced by entering the safety of dreams. He realizes that the need of an escape is an essential part of the human existence. His title for the poem establishes that as one enters the land of dreams, one sheds the demands of the day and becomes the ruler of the ghost world that has been created. The sense of peace that overrides all demands of the day captures the thoughts of the inner mind and develops a kingdom where even the smallest may rule in bliss.