The Emperors Ice Cream

... Ice Cream Rules All The poem "Emperor Ice Cream" by Wallace Stevens, takes place in the funeral of a women. However, you will not know this until the second stanza because it is portrayed as a happy celebration. The theme of the poem is death. The narrator implies that people always look for explanations beyond what something really is, like death. In other words, we don't let "be be" (line 7). One can gather that there is nothing more to life than humans seeking pleasure out of every opportunity. I will explain how Stevens uses formal elements like symbolism, imagery, rhyme and figurative language further reinforce the theme of the poem. In this poem the author uses symbolism to reinforce the theme by deglorifying death. The speaker says that the only "high mighty" or "emperor" of humans is our desires, like eating ice cream. Ice cream in the

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