Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock

Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock By Wallace Stevens Introduction Insurance salesman (snooze) by day, poet (whoa!) by night. That's Wallace Stevens in a nutshell, folks, and you couldn't get a stranger story. Growing up, Stevens lived a pretty privileged life, as the son of a well-to-do lawyer. He went to Harvard. He went to law school. Then he wound up working for an insurance firm called Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, where he eventually became vice president. He was a go-getter, a company man, a stock and standard white collar worker. So how did a man that lived such a straight, narrow, and—dare we say?— boring life write such bizarre and imaginative poetry? Who knows for sure? Stevens' coworkers at the good old Hartford Co. didn't even know that ol' Wally even wrote poetry. They thought he was a number-crunching pencil pusher like the rest of 'em. But we here at Shmoop have a theory. We think it has to do with how much this guy valued imagination in the first place. In fact, that's exactly what "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" is all about. First published in 1915, in the second issue of Rogue, a little literary magazine with a short life, the poem eventually ended up in Stevens's first collection of poetry, Harmonium (1923). "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" describes the typical bedtime scene in houses in an atypical way. The speaker describes how the people living in the houses wear boring, bland pajamas, which means they'll have boring, bland dreams. Elsewhere, folks in more interesting outfits will have way more awesome dreams. See, it's all about imagination (and a little style never hurt). You either have it, or you don't. And in Wally's case, he had it in spades, despite his rather middleof-the-road surroundings. 9 Why Should I Care? 1 You know those days when you just can't muster the energy to get up and do something worthwhile? You just feel bogged down and uncreative. Instead of jumpstarting your creative brain, you probably watch some TV, eat out of boredom, organize your sock drawer… you know the drill. Well, like your friends at Shmoop, Wallace Stevens believed deep down in his crazy soul that poetry, and literature in general, could make one's life better by giving you that jumpstart. The right kind of poem at the right time could stir up your imagination to the point of seeing the many possibilities of our world. Why wear a white nightgown to bed, when you could wear a green one with yellow polka dots? Okay, so it's not 1915, and no one wears nightgowns, except the big bad wolf in cartoons. But what if we started wearing multicolored nightgowns? Or, you know, boots? Imagine the dreams we would have! Behind poems like "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" lies an imagination tearing at its reins, just waiting to work its strange magic on the world. Stevens thought that people didn't understand how they saw the world. For Stevens, the average Joe saw the world in black and white, because the man on the street didn't realize that his experiences of the world came through the filter of the five senses and a fantastic maze called the brain. But the mind, for Stevens, is a world of infinite possibilities that is only limited by a person's weak imagination. So if you want to go about dreaming of baboons or world peace, go do it, man. The world is your oyster. Text of the Poem The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather. Summary 2 The speaker describes houses that are haunted by boring, white nightgowns. He or she then goes on to list a number of more interesting options for nightgowns (we have just one question: where's the taffeta?). Finally, the speaker concludes that the people who wear the boring nightgowns will have boring dreams, but the drunk, old sailors are going to have crazy dreams, perhaps because they're sleeping in their boots. Lines 1-9 Summary Lines 1-2 The houses are haunted By white night-gowns.  Okay. Right off the bat, this is a silly poem.  We mean, nightgowns are basically big, white shirts that come down to the ankle. They're glorified sheets that people sleep in. They're ridiculous-looking.  Like out of some cartoon (do people watch Scooby Doo anymore?), a house is haunted by a person in a sheet… ish.  But it's not just one house. It's a whole bunch of houses. Those nightgowns are on the rampage.  The speaker might be giving the suburbs a hard time for being filled with boring people. In other words, we think that whole "haunted" business is really just a metaphor for the way in which all those denizens of suburbia wear the same exact boring old thing to bed. Lines 3-6 None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings.  Yep, it's a silly one.  Ugh, what a shame that none of these nightgowns are green, or purple, or any other color, with a little pattern. You know, something to shake things up?  See, the speaker is listing all the crazy colors that the nightgowns could be, but aren't, because the people in them don't like fun. He's using a 3 little thing we like to call anaphora, or repeated phrases at the beginning of a like (in this case "Or") to really drive home the point.  By saying what the nightgowns don't look like, the speaker is giving us clues into how the scene could be more interesting if the people in the houses put a little effort into their wardrobes.  These nightgowns almost sound clown-like. The imagery here is all about bright colors and bold patterns. Lines 7-9 None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures.  None of the nightgowns are weird enough for the speaker, who's obviously into absurd art. Either that or he's friends with Dolly Parton, who's no stranger to beads and lace.9  Since the subject of the sentence is a pronoun ("them"), we're not exactly sure what he or she is talking about, but we can assume he's referring to the nightgowns here.  Still, it's possible that the speaker is trying to tell us that the houses or the people in the houses aren't strange either. Which is a big ol' bummer.  The speaker thinks some lacy socks (um, those sound uncomfortable) or beaded belts (a.k.a. "ceintures") could jazz up the nightgowns.9  We agree. You know, we here at Shmoop our known for our style, and we'd like to add a little flow and color to the outfit. Lines 10-15 Summary Lines 10-11 People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles.  So the people in the houses, with their boring, beltless nightgowns, are going to have lame dreams.  No dreams about baboons (those funny monkeys with blue faces and the pink butts).  And no dreams about little flowers called periwinkles.9 4  Why baboons? Why periwinkles? We're not sure. The two certainly don't have much in common. But hey, maybe that's the point— they're different, random, and just fanciful enough to get our creative juices flowing.  What we notice here is that our speaker seems to know what's gonna go down before it happens. He already knows what dreams may come. Lines 12-13 Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots,  It looks like the speaker has found a few crazy old sailors to liven up the scene. Thank goodness.  We'd usually expect sailors to be by the sea, but here they are scattered throughout some (presumably) suburban houses.  However, sailors probably have lived through some exciting experiences: storms, foreign lands, new cultures.  They've traveled, seen the world, and are definitely not your typical suburban house dwellers.  Old and drunk, the sailors are passed out in chairs, on beds and floors, and even in front yards still wearing their boots. They must be pooped, if they couldn't even bother taking their shoes off before catching some Z's.  "[H]ere and there" suggests that there are more than one sailor doing this at the same time.  It's like a flash mob of booted, sleeping sailors. Lines 14-15 Catches tigers In red weather.  The speaker gives an example of what an un-boring dream for a sailor might be.  The sailor catches tigers (this is probably before tigers were protected by the government).  And he catches them in red weather.9 5  Have you ever heard of the expression "Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning"? It's a classic old sailing adage, and it means that red weather at sunset is a good sign.9  So, because it's night, and these dudes are sleeping, the fact that they're catching tigers in red weather probably means that the crazy dreams are more delightful than frightening. We mean, who wouldn't want to catch tigers? We're betting that's pretty thrilling.  So our speaker seems to be saying that a vivid imagination is nothing to be afraid of, rather it's to be enjoyed like a circus full of clowns and lion tamers. Analysis  Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory  Color There are five different colors mentioned in the fifteen lines that make up "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock." For Stevens, vibrant and bold colors represent the richness of an active imagination, while white is unimaginative and nap-inducing.  Line 2: Okay, how boring is it to wear the same white nightgown every night? Sure, no one's looking, but still, you should liven it up for yourself. These white nightgowns are boring our poor speaker to death.9  Line 3: By pointing out that no nightgowns are green, the speaker is warming you up for the real wild colors that follow.  Lines 4-6: These crazy colors come straight out of the circus. And we pay extra close attention to them, thanks to Stevens's clever use of anaphora.  Line 11: You've got to use that movie theater in your brain to see the brilliant colors of periwinkle flowers (purplish) and baboon butt (red). Now we're getting really imaginative.  Line 14: Like in line 11, use your imagination to see the orange and black of the tiger fur—a whole new color. 6 Line 15: Red weather pushes your imagination to the reasonable limits and beyond. Weather? Red? How? This is the climax that Stevens has built us up to. Hope you were ready.   Clothing Wallace Stevens must have worn a lot of suits in his day. Don't get us wrong, but that must have been boring for such an imaginative man. But within the haunted house of "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock," he gets to play dress-up with his bodiless characters. He wants to add more and more colors and accessories to make his subjects fabulously fashionable. "Not enough!" The speaker then turns to shabby chic in describing what the sailor wears to bed. Apparently untraditional clothing leads to maddening dreams and fantasies. Even a dull nightgown could get in the way of imagination. The old sailor is asleep in his boots, so we can assume that he has the rest of his sailor get-up on. As a result of his clothing, the sailor dreams to the level that the speaker celebrates. Yar.  Line 2: The nightgowns float about like ghosts in a bad haunted house. This is a figurative (meaning not literal) description of an everyday event. What you might not think about is how there are actually people under those nightgowns. This is a metonymy in that the white nightgowns seem to represent the boring people wearing them.9  Lines 4-6: Like the "basic" green, these are exaggerated images representing imaginative personas. You might think of them as visual hyperbole in that they are highly exaggerated. The speaker probably doesn't expect us to wear anything so strange. Also, those repeated phrases are an example of anaphora.  Line 8: Socks of lace are regular gym socks times ten. They're the more feminine equivalent of argyle socks. In other words, they're snazzy, to say the least.  Line 9: Ceintures is the French word for belts. They just sound more fashionable, don't you think?  Line 13: Similar to the nightgowns, the sailor's boots almost act as metonymy. We write "almost," because the connection between the boots and dreams is implied while the nightgowns are more strongly connected to the dreams. Admittedly, this metonymy business can be a fuzzy area. 7  Dreams "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" makes Stevens come off as a little judgey when it comes to who has imaginative dreams or who doesn't. True, the people in the houses "are not going / To dream of baboons and periwinkles," but this doesn't necessarily mean that the people won't dream of wallabies and calla lilies, right? Right. However, what is implied is that their dreams will be boring relative to the sailors. "Shame on them," says Stevens. Good dreams in the poem are connected to imagination, and when you lack it, your dreams are bound to be lackluster.  Lines 10-11: People—presumably the people in the haunting, white nightgowns—are unimaginative, so they don't dream of colorful and beautiful things.  Lines 13-15: Drunk sailors dream the best dreams of the poem, complete with awesome imagery: "tigers / In red weather." Don't turn this into a symbol of anything more than a fantastic imagination.  Form and Meter Free Verse This one's all about imagination, folks, so of course it's in free verse. What would a poem about creativity and freedom be if it were written in neat little metrical lines. Meter, for Stevens, just might be the poetic equivalent of white nightgowns. At least, in this poem. Still, this poem is not without its formal charms. Stevens could play with sound like nobody's business, so head on over to our "Sound Check" section for more on his rocking sonics and rollicking rhymes.  Speaker Speaker? What speaker? We don't know who this guy is. Is he one of those folks in a white nightgown? Is he an old salt, sleeping in his boots? Or is he someone completely different, someone detached from the action, someone looking down on it all? 8 We think the speaker is probably closest to that last option, but honestly, we don't know much about the guy (or gal, for that matter). All we can really guess about this guy comes from what he chooses to tell us about these white nightgowned sleepers. Because he laments the fact that none of these nightgowns are green or "purple with green rings" (4) and so forth, we can guess that this is a guy who likes a little color in his life. He would never, for example, paint the walls of his bedroom beige. No sir. And we know from the fact that he seems to enjoy the sailors' dreams— of tigers in red weather—that this guy loves a little excitement, too. Of course this leaves us with just one question: how do we get that color and excitement in our lives? Well, our speaker has the answer: by using our imagination. It's really that simple. See, the sailor doesn't have to go out to catch tigers in red weather. The dude can do it in his mind, because his imagination is a lot healthier than all those folks sleeping in boring garb.  Setting We can't really be sure where we are, but Shmoop likes to think we're in surburbia. Or Suburgatory as some like to call it. After all, the houses are haunted, and no one's having good dreams. Yep, this is the land of the boring, the stock and standard. Pleasantville. Mayfield. Mayberry, even. Sure, this poem was written in 1915, before suburbs were really the thing, but the social and emotional climate is much the same. This poem takes place in a world of conformity, where everyone wears the same night clothes and dreams the same old dreams. Only the sailor, who has gotten outside that comfort zone, and seen some of the world, has dreams worth remembering.  What's Up With the Title? Disillusionment. The absence of illusions. That sounds like a good thing, right? We mean, if we don't have illusions, that means we're not seeing things that aren't there, which also means we're not totally insane. Awesome. But disillusionment can have a not-so-nice meaning, too. It can mean that we've become disenchanted with life's wonder. That we can't think outside the box, believe in something more, and free up our imaginations. There's just the boring old nightgown and the boring old bed. And that brings us to the "Ten O'Clock" portion of the title. If we're disillusioned at 10 o'clock, that means we're disillusioned right around bedtime—the time our dreams are supposed to take over. But if you're 9 disillusioned at 10 o'clock, those dreams are gonna be, well, really boring. No flying, no baboons. Snoozerific. It's that snoozerific quality that our speaker is lamenting. What a shame our nightgowns are so boring. What a shame we dream in black and white and not in periwinkle. In fact, you might say that even our speaker is disillusioned—with the lack of imagination these bedtime bozos are showing. Themes  Versions of Reality Stevens wasn't much of a religious guy, but one thing he did believe in was the power of imagination. Why? Because imagination opens up all possible versions of reality. How does it do that? By creating reality in the first place. Are your minds blown? Well, they should be. All right, enough already. We'll stop asking questions and leave you with this nugget of wisdom: "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" is about this very dynamic. Folks with imagination are able to create their own interesting realities, while folks without it are, well, not. “The houses are haunted (1)” Ghosts aren't real, but they do exist in our imaginations—and movies, of course. But the figurative language has already got our creative juices flowing. Our minds can turn these normal suburban houses into haunted ones. Neat. “By white night-gowns. (2)” White nightgowns represent our base level of imagination—meaning this is what a department store sells us for cheap. Sure, one may have a lace collar, and another might have ¾ sleeves, but for the most part, they all look just about the same. “None are green, (3)” Wearing a green nightgown takes a little bit of imagination and a little more money. You'd have to find a cool store to buy it in, but you could still buy it. And at least you'd be snazzier than everybody else. That's worth a few bucks, right? 10 “Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. (4-6)” You would never find anything like these in a store. You would have to tie-dye them and do some real imaginative work. What's interesting here, though, is that as imaginative as these nightgowns are, they're also kind of a logical progression. The purple one has green rings, then the green one has yellow rings, then the yellow one has blue rings. What about turquoise polka dots? Or magenta flowers? “None of them are strange, (7)” Strange is the rare version of reality that we have to seek out. These people haven't made the effort to be strange. They're too conformist. And what a shame it is. “Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, (12-13)” This is the only literal and concrete bit of the poem. The rest describes possibilities and what things are not. But these sailors, they're good enough as they are, because they're too busy creating an awesome dream world in their dreamy little heads.  Appearances Our speaker is totally judging by appearances. And he doesn't like what he sees. All the people in the little boxes they call houses are boring the speaker to death. They don't ever push the metaphorical envelope. Even when they're in their own homes, they don't take the opportunity to let loose and put on some funky bed wear. Their appearances are total yawnsville. The speaker of "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" offers an alternative to his readers, so that we, too, don't commit the same fashion crime of being bland. “The houses are haunted (1)” Ghosts appear out of nowhere, and if a ghost popped up, you would certainly be surprised to say the least. In fact, you might have to spend a lot of time thinking about if what you saw was real or just your imagination playing a trick on you. 11 “By white night-gowns. (2)” So it turns out your imagination in that first line? It totally was playing a trick on you. We're not talking ghosts at all. What things look like—how they seem—isn't always what they are. “None are green Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. (3-6)” The color schemes stir our imagination and make us understand how exciting the world can be. These color schemes also make us consider the strangeness of our normal color schemes and normal ways of living. Who's to say what's normal, anyway? Isn't it all relative? “None of them are strange, (7)” Something only appears strange if we rarely experience it. If we see something every day, it does not appear to be strange anymore, and what a bummer that would be. Now, go listen to "People Are Strange" by The Doors. “With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. (8-9)” These accessories are garish and gaudy. Anyone who wore them to bed would appear strange. And probably more than a little uncomfortable. Fierce, but uncomfortable. “Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, (12-13)” The sailor's drunken and messy appearance makes us think that he has had a hard, but possibly enriching, life. He's had some fun, and that makes for fun dreams.  Repression Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" was written in 1915, so middle-class America was still holding on to the hopes that it could be the European middle class. It was all a bit stuffy, and Stevens was in the thick of it. But this poem isn't about repression like your classic, sexless Victorian Novel was. Instead it calls for the reader to be like the old sailor, sound his or 12 her barbaric yawp, and dream of hunting tigers. Let loose, in other words. At least in your dreams, if nowhere else. “The houses are haunted (1)” This is a possible critique of the boredom of suburban, middle-class life. It's spooky, and it's meant to be. We're scared for these folks, who might be harmed by their own boring conformity. “By white night-gowns. (2)” The white nightgown may be the least sexy bed wear, second to flannel pajamas. Nobody really sees what we wear to bed except our families, so why are we afraid to wear some wacky stuff to bed? Hopefully, unlike the people in the houses, we can be our creative and unique selves when we are at home without fear of being judged as strange. “None are green Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, (3-7)” After pointing out all the things that aren't there, the speaker has left the reader hanging on every word to fill that absent space in the reader's imagination. The space is like a vacuum that wants to suck in the next creative image that it can find. We're starving for a good metaphor by this point, because all these awesome colors are being repressed. “With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. (8-9)” It's no coincidence that Stevens has chosen two French items (lace is said to have been invented on the border between France and Belgium). The French always seem exotic and exciting when it comes to fashion and accessories, don't they? Why not add a beret to this get-up? “To dream of baboons and periwinkles. (11)” These are not the dreams of a repressed person. No siree. If you're dreaming of baboons, Freud would say you're good to go. “Drunk and asleep in his boots, (13)” 13 The old sailor is so not repressed. Not one bit. Though it's not the best alternative to repression, he's cool with getting drunk and passing out in his clothes and shoes. Classy? No. But it leads to good dreams.  Madness "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" seems to ask, "What's crazier: dreaming of baboons and tigers, or living a boring life?" The obvious answer, or not, is that a boring life and a boring dream life are the pits, and therefore, are not the sane choice. A little madness keeps things fresh. It's saner to be crazy. At least, in your dreams it is. “The houses are haunted (1)” Although people who claim they see ghosts are often thought of as crazy, the houses are only haunted metaphorically. So everyone's still sane. For now. “People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. (10-11)” Hey, we've had much weirder dreams after some spicy Thai food, but like the colors before, saying what something isn't just makes the reader want to imagine what the people could be dreaming of. Reverse psychology, anyone? “Only, here and there, an old sailor, (12)” We have to really use our imaginations to come up with a mental image of the sailors. It's as if a sailor represents a whole group of people that live exciting lives. Those of us who live quieter lives might envy the sailors a little as far as they are risk takers who frequently seek out new experiences. “Catches tigers In red weather. (14-15)” Um, you'd have to be mad to attempt to catch a tiger—and in red weather nonetheless. 14