The Paper Nautilus

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Watching Over and Observation

Observation is one of the main functions driving “The Paper Nautilus” forward, and it embodies the poem at many levels. One of the most apparent levels is the poem’s subject matter: The poem follows an observation of a paper nautilus. Moore is meticulous with the details, how the speaker pays close and careful attention, so much that we can’t help but become swept away in the particulars. As the speaker observes the paper nautilus, so do we as readers.

The paper nautilus, completely devoted to her task, is also “watchful” (Line 12), “guard[ing]” over the shell and her eggs so passionately “she scarcely / eats until the eggs are hatched” (Lines 14-15). As readers,

we share in the watching of watching. One of the implications of this process is that sight becomes a framing agent: the gaze of the poet creates a frame around the nautilus just as the gaze of the nautilus creates a frame around the eggs (Miller 116).

According to Andrew Miller, it is possible “The Paper Nautilus” is a “suppressed ekphrasis” defined as “descriptions that are based on photographs but that do not acknowledge these photographs in their sources” (Miller 107). With Moore’s affinity for writing about animals and her access to a then-still emerging artform, photography, it is not naive to think she may have had access to a photo of a paper nautilus at some point (Miller 108). It can be argued that while photography is still, the photo is taken by someone who is there to watch and capture the moment, and then this photo is viewed by Moore. Finally, the paper nautilus shell she was gifted by Elizabeth Bishop also adds to the multiple layers of watching happening in the poem.

Writing and Creation

While the poem is about a paper nautilus, it is also a poem about the nature of writing. We see this emphasized in the word play of the title, for instance. To read the word “paper” in the title of a poem invokes writing, and when one continues reading, it invokes the writing of the very poem being read. The way the speaker describes the paper nautilus and its shell with “thin” (Line 7) and “white on white” (Line 28) also conjures up images of a blank page, the starting point of any poem, its own vast sea.

Another way Moore pursues the theme of writing in “The Paper Nautilus” is through the animal’s act of reproduction, which is symbolic of creation. Like the blank page, the need to procreate, to create, and to write become intertwined. Like nature, merciless and unforgiving, so is the pursuit of writing and poetry. Moore makes light of this comparison in the start of the poem, however, when the speaker points out that the paper nautilus is not concerned with a writer’s comforts.

Maternal Instincts

While “The Paper Nautilus” is a poem about an octopus, it is also about maternal instincts: “Here the central trope is the creation of new life within and from a creature, the carefully balanced mutuality of the eggs and their maternal source…” (Diehl, Joanne Feit. Women Poets and the American Sublime. Indiana University Press, 1990). The intensity with which the paper nautilus watches over her eggs is front and center through the descriptions of the shell. For her to provide and protect her eggs, she devotes herself to the point of hunger.

“In ‘The Paper Nautilus,’ enfolding arms represent a desire for absolute love that engages related issues of maternal steadfastness and the tenacity of maternal affection” (Diehl). The “freed” (Line 26) shell becomes a “wasp-nest” (Line 27), which conveys the brute of birth and maternal sacrifice. This way, the poem “is both a refuge and a risk, offering…security…and the crushing pressure of dependency […],” for which it is said Moore “associates with language and interpretation,”—“then the myth of poetic origins, as envisioned by Moore, is a maternal myth” (Diehl).

Moore remained close to her mother, living with her up until her death. While she didn’t have children of her own, she did have a close maternal friendship and mentorship with fellow poet Elizabeth Bishop, who credits herself for giving Moore the gift that would inspire the poem.

Life and Love Against all Odds

The life sustaining shell is described as a “perishable souvenir of hope” (Lines 8-9), something short-lived and impermanent, which may seem antithetical, but the continuation of life offers “hope” despite the inevitable. The fact that the paper nautilus exists at all, to be observed as “purely a matter of reading the surface of the thing itself so as to record exactly what that surface expresses….as examples of a greater truth” (Miller 114), is a lesson in hope.