"Mock Orange" by Louise Gluck

In Louise Gluck’s poem “Mock Orange”, the title essentially means ridicule orange. At the
beginning of the poem, the brightness of flowers in a yard is mistaken for a moon. The
next stanza moves toward how much the author hates the flowers and relates the flowers
to sex. The in depth analysis of sex and how a man acts during sex is portrayed after that. The author describes the moaning of an individual and how moaning is a way to release the “premise of union”. Then, she hears a question but gets the answer “fused in one sound”. The following stanza continues to speak on sex and the moaning but takes a dramatic turn to state “And the scent of mock orange drifts through the window”. The last stanza asks the question of “How can I be content when there is still that odor in the world?” Throughout the poem Gluck uses different literary elements to convey her detestation for the smell of flowers and sexual intercourse.

One theme that stood out was the tone of the entire poem. At the beginning, the tone is very hostile. “It is not the moon, I tell you. It is the flowers lighting the yard”. This shows that the author is holding a conversation with someone else and also tells the other person how she feels about the flowers. This also means, for the flowers, that they are lustrous just like the moon. The moon is very appealing to the eye as well as bright and as the author refers the flowers to the moon, she signifies that the flowers in the yard are too vivid at night. Another line that portrayed the tone as hostile is the second stanza when the author states “I hate them. I hate them as I hate sex, the man’s mouth sealing my mouth, the man’s paralyzing body-“. Hear Gluck expresses her internal feelings about sexual intercourse. She seems to “hate” the external things that are going on such as the “man’s paralyzing body” and the “cry that always escapes”. The tone shows Gluck’s hatred of flowers by her stating “How can I rest? How can I still be content when there is still that odor in the world?” in the last stanza. Here she clearly cannot stand the smell of the flowers and then relates to sexual intercourse as well.

Another theme used throughout “Mock Orange” is persona. The complete poem is written in first person. Gluck uses first person to incorporate the readers more deeply into the poem. By using first person, Gluck is not necessarily describing how she feels about the flowers and sex but maybe how someone else feels about them. “I” is used six times in the poem to show how Gluck (who might be representing someone else) views these items. She takes these words and makes them her own so that the reader can understand how an individual may feel about the flowers in the yard and sexual intercourse. By using persona Gluck tries to make the dislike of the flowers and sexual intercourse her own. Using first person gets the reader trapped inside the world of the poet because it seems as if this is how the poet feels and most of the time in actuality, the poet is speaking for someone else.

Last of all, the final theme that stuck out was the diction. Gluck uses words such as “flowers”, “hate”, “sex”, “paralyzing”, “humiliating”, “mount”, “fools”, and “odor” for readers to vision these images. When one looks at these words, certain images come to mind. For flowers, a variety of colors, different types of flowers, sizes, and a list of other things come to mind. These words used in the same poem create a bizarre visual image in the readers head. Using these words in the poem also helps Gluck to show her detestation for the flowers in the yard and sexual intercourse.