In their lifetime, people will doubt who they are and question how life would have turned out had they made different choices or acted differently. In the poem “Ask Me”, the poet William Stafford uses literary devices to deliver a message: we must accept that sometimes what happens in life is out of our control, and that we should trust fate to help shape our lives and our inner selves.
One literary device the poet uses to express this theme is allegory. The river within the poem, represents a driving force known as fate also known as destiny. Like water in a river, fate guides people down certain paths, and leads them to where they are. In the first line of the second stanza “I will listen to what you say”, when the speaker says “you” they
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The word choice in this poem is fairly simple and informal, which makes the poem seem to take place in a relaxed environment. The poem also appears to be a conversation between two characters: the speaker and the listener. Words such as “I will listen”, “silent”, “wait”, “stillness” and “we know” create an overall tone of peaceful acceptance. This tone of peaceful acceptance relates to the theme because it parallels how the speaker feels once they have decided to let fate take control of their life.
Another way that the poem portrays the theme of waiting on fate to take control is through the use of imagery. In the first stanza, the image of two characters standing by a frozen river is formed through the words “when the river is ice” and the conversational language used. In the second stanza, these two characters look at the river and wait. This is depicted in the line “You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait.” The poem overall shows the speaker and the listener watching and waiting for the river to begin to flow again. This relates to the theme that peoples would depend on fate because the images create a sense of waiting, which is exactly what peoples do. They wait for something to happen, for something to change so that they can continue on with their lives. People wait for fate to make the first