21 pages • 42 minutes read
Sonia SanchezDepression
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Embodied Illness
Although depression is a mental illness, its physical symptoms are not limited to the brain. In “Depression,” Sanchez uses imagery associated with other kinds of illnesses to symbolize the pain and severity of depression throughout the body.
The speaker’s eye sockets “sing” when they are bumped into, radiating physical pain. The speaker is sweaty, as if feverish under her blankets. She describes settling into wheelbarrows, communicating that she is physically unable to move around without assistance. Those wheelbarrows are “grotesque with wounds” (Line 12)—they have been physically changed by something painful and the wounds resulting from that destruction are visible. The speaker tells the reader where the symptoms are in her body, as if physically pointing to where it hurts. Her tears come from her forehead. She describes them as “sluggish in pulse” (Line 23) to communicate how much of a threat they pose to her life. Her soul, an intangible part of her, she describes as “spinal” (Line 4), giving it a central place in her anatomy. For the speaker, depression is not just a state of mind, but an all-consuming state of being.
The Female Body
Disconnected from the world and other people, the speaker struggles to make sense of her body and her existence. The physicality of her body becomes a motif that draws attention to how she feels disconnected from her own self. Her body becomes distinctly female in Stanza 3: “am I a seed consumed by breasts / without the weasel’s eye / or the spaniel teeth of a child?” (Lines 18-20).
The weasel is often depicted as a wily, cowardly creature that takes what it wants. In the context of breasts, this could be a lecherous person who objectifies a woman by looking inappropriately at her cleavage. This is an uncomfortable reality for existing as a woman in public, but the speaker worries who she is now that she spends all of her time in private. The words “spaniel teeth of a child” (Line 20) present a similar conundrum. Breastfeeding is an act of love and intimate connection, but a teething baby might unintentionally harm its mother in the process. She could choose to stop nursing, but if she continues to lactate, then she will be in pain anyway. The depressed speaker wonders if her potential—the seed—has been consumed by breasts, or her womanhood. She has a choice between two painful realities: Either she is in community and just a pair of breasts, or she is withdrawn and reduced to nothing at all.
Light
As the speaker languishes in her room, she awaits passing days, tracking them by changes in light. The light symbolizes the hope that often eludes the speaker. She anticipates the evening “from under the sun” (Line 3). She spends her depressed days in uncomfortable thought patterns, restless with dreams and worried waking thoughts, under sheets and blankets. A little piece of light, perhaps a ray of sun through a crack in the curtains, comes crawling in during the day. She watches it crawl around for a moment before it “turns a corner” (Line 7), and of course, she is unable to go after it.
Unfortunately, the evening does not necessarily bring relief. She opens Section 2 by announcing that she has “cried all night” (Line 21). When moonlight comes through her window again, she sees it as a bold intrusion. The audacious moon dares to “dance” in her room. This light is as unwelcome as the sun’s, although it does remind her of stars. This is another kind of little light, only one in the night sky, and it represents hope: self-sustaining mercy and a god-like sense of peace.
