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Definition of Idiom
An idiom is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on a literal interpretation of the words in the phrase. For... read full definition
An idiom is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on a literal interpretation of the... read full definition
An idiom is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on... read full definition
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Dust:
In an imagined argument with Buddy, whom she had been dating prior to going to New York, Esther uses both allusion and logos in order to defend poetry from Buddy’s criticism:
I imagined Buddy saying, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?” “No, what?” I would say. “A piece of dust.” Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.” And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust [...]
Earlier, Buddy insisted that poetry was nothing but “dust,” suggesting that it is meaningless and insignificant. Though Esther did not argue with Buddy, she later resumes their argument in her own mind. Here, she uses logos, arguing that, ultimately, people themselves are also just “dust” insofar as they are composed of matter and, in the end, die. Further, she reasons that poems in fact last longer than humans, as the human body itself is ephemeral.
Esther’s argument that the bodies of people are merely “dust” serves as an allusion to a passage in Genesis that reads "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"—a passage that emphasizes the cyclical nature of life, touching on the idea that humans came from the earth itself and will eventually return to the earth when they die. However, the common usage of another popular phrase, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," also probably informs this moment in The Bell Jar. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" isn't actually in the Bible, but it has become something of an idiom that emphasizes the fleeting nature of human life. This, it seems, is what Esther has in mind when she thinks about poems lasting "a whole lot longer" than the cadavers Buddy works with.
Related Themes:
