Style
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphismis the practice in literature of
giving human qualities to nonhuman objects. It
is often used in children’s tales, as in familiar
animated films about talking lions or dancing
brooms. In this poem, anthropomorphism is
seen in the way that Rukeyser talks about the
language, songs, and food of what are under-
stood to be cockroaches and in the way that
she describes the cockroach as humorous and
compares its movements to those of a dancer.
Of course, cockroaches have not developed any
of these aspects of culture, but speaking as if they
have allows the poem to make readers draw
certain conclusions. Just as an anthropomorph-
ized car might invite its audience to think about
the ways in which a car’s grille is like a human’s
teeth and its headlights are like eyes, so, too,
does the anthropomorphic cockroach draw
attention to the ways that a person might dismiss
another category of people as if they were bugs.
Extended Metaphor
Ametaphoris a figure of speech that uses one
idea to bring another to mind. The comparison
made by a metaphor is implied and not stated. In
‘‘St. Roach,’’ for instance, Rukeyser does not
state that she looked upon people of other
cultures as if they were cockroaches; instead,
she talks about cockroaches and lets her
readers imagine how much the things said
about cockroaches match the things people
say about cultures they do not know.
The power of the metaphor lies in its trans-
ferring some of the thought process to the reader.
When the comparison is not stated explicitly, read-
ers are forced to look beneath the surface of the
words to determine why the writer is talking about
two things at once. An example might be if some-
one referred to another person as ‘‘a rock’’: the
person hearing this expressionisforcedtodeter-
mine which qualities of a rock—density? steadfast-
ness? weight?—might apply to the person called
one. They would have to think about the context
in which the word was used, and they would there-
fore be active in making meaning of an expression
that might not otherwise make sense.
Theimpliedcomparisonusedin‘‘St.Roach’’is
anextended metaphor. Rukeyser does not just imply
the relationship betweenhow one treats unfamiliar
races and how one treats cockroaches once, but
further she repeats the comparison in several differ-
ent places. She refers in one place to color, in
another to food, in another to language, in another
to songs, and so on. This range of implied compar-
isons makes readers look at the metaphor from
different angles. With the many associations that
are implied here, Rukeyser is able to show that the
problem of seeing other people in unjust ways is
deeply ingrained in social attitudes.Repetition
Lines 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 13 start with the same
two words. This pattern is repeated with a slight
variation in lines 14 through 17 and then with yet
another slight variation in lines 21 and 22. Start-
ing so many of the poem’s lines with one of these
three similar phrases gives ‘‘St. Roach’’ the feel of
an incantation, as if the speaker is trying to
summon mysterious forces, when in fact she is
trying to understand her own conflicting emo-
tions—often a mysterious process. The repeti-
tion also lends coherence to a poem that does
not use traditional poetic devices such as rhyme
or meter to give structure to its ideas.Archaic Diction
Rukeyser begins this poem by phrasing her
observations in a stilted, unnatural way, using a
style of inverted sentences that she repeats in line
after line. Her diction resembles the sort of gran-
diloquence that readers might associate with a
royal pronouncement or even a passage of bib-
lical verse. By addressing the subject, understood
to be a common cockroach, this way, the poem
elevates the terms of the discussion. The speaker
uses language that shows her awareness that her
ignorance and prejudice are as significant in
scale as the most serious observations ever set
down in poetry. Readers may feel uplifted, even
though the details given in the poem are fairly
mundane, because the burgeoning revelation at
the end of the poem thus framed by the archaic
diction is indeed a grand one.Historical Context
Shifting Cultural Awareness from the
1950s through the 1970s
In the 1970s, American culture was at the height
of a movement away from established precon-
ceptions toward a recognition of the diversity in
society. The roots of this shift can be traced backSt. Roach