Precision and Ambiguity: The Role of History in Rosanna Warren’s Poem “The Mink”

The following writing is an essay I wrote during my AP Literature and Composition class analyzing Rosanna Warren’s Poem “The Mink”. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this analysis, and since I do not want this piece to be buried among my school files, I figured I would post it here :)

If you would like to read the poem I reference, click this link. I would love to hear your comments and input on the writing and your interpretation of the poem so feel free to share in the comments below this essay.

Precision and Ambiguity: The Role of History in Rosanna Warren’s Poem “The Mink”

Throughout Rosanna Warren’s poem “The Mink,” the speaker compares her constant remembrance of one of her memories to the predatory nature of a mink. Through the mink’s movements, Warren shares the infinitely guaranteed presence of history that nobody can willfully remove, while also emphasizing the ambiguity of how that history will take shape in day-to-day life.

In the beginning of the poem, the speaker mathematically describes how the mink she sees runs. The mink runs similar to “sine and cosine” (3), mathematical concepts that move in a rhythmic pattern in arcs that move up and down. Math, specifically sine and cosine, is rather predetermined and precise, something that would not typically be associated with the movement of the wild mink. The speaker’s choice in diction, adds to the imagery connecting the mink and memories. If the mink is a symbol of remembering and history, the mink’s rhythmic running establishes an infinite pattern of history. Considering the shape specifically of “sine and cosine” adds to the continuum of how memories are kept and processed. People remember something from their history not at a constant rate, but only when something reignites the faded memory to be played again in one’s mind. The speaker further describes the shape of memory when she notes that the mink’s movement “never dips below / the line” (4-5). Unlike a typical sine or cosine graph, which moves into the negative quadrants, a mink can not possibly move below ground when it is running in the manner a sine or cosine graph would. Therefore, the inclusion of “sine and cosine” is a flawed analogy, but in mentioning the flawed portions of the initial statement, the speaker is emphasizing the mink’s inability to enter a world less than zero. She recognizes her initial misuse of “sine and cosine” with her caesura of “but no—” (3). Including the em dash adds an intentional breath, a hesitation, between the speaker’s initial observation and her elaboration. The hesitation juxtaposes the finite and precise ideologies found in math, adding variance beyond a procedural approach to obtaining a certain answer. And, with the understanding that the mink is a symbol of the speaker’s history, its rhythmic yet imperfectly represented run suggests that history is not necessarily one specific answer that an equation can solve. The mink may have “vanished” (5) into a nearby bush, but that mink is only out of sight; its physical presence is still there. A memory cannot, like “sine and cosine” suggests, be forgotten so deeply that it goes negatively beyond zero. Memories, like the positive portion of sine and cosine, are remembered, briefly put out of direct sight, but are never fully gone. 

The speaker, however, does not seem to want her memories to be forever physically present. As she continues, she describes the mink killing a rabbit, developing a malicious tone. The speaker is not herself being malicious, but rather, the mink is the malicious being, having the power to “crack a rabbit’s spine / in one bite” (6-7). The word “crack”(6) is an onomatopoeia, which develops the instantaneous power the mink has over the rabbit. The reader’s ability to mentally hear the sound of the “rabbit’s spine” (6) breaking with the word “crack” emphasizes the malice of the mink. The mink also kills “in one bite” (7). A singular bite further proves the mink’s power as a destroyer. The speaker then connects herself to the dead rabbit through attaching “And my mind” (7) to the same line as “in one bite.” Not only is the spine an extension of the mind, but the “and” (7) as a conjunction connects the rabbit and the speaker despite the period that separates the two. The period is significant to creating a dissonance between what would be a clear-cut parallel between the rabbit and the speaker’s mind (the place where one’s history and memories are held). Instead, “and” is not a full conjunction connecting the rabbit and the speaker, but instead serves as a wish that the speaker may have. The speaker may want the history that she replays in her mind to be snapped like the rabbit’s spine, but instead, the continuation of the sentence with her mind is enjambed into the next stanza with “leapt along the track” (8). The enjambment of the sentence suggests two separate ideas: one with the speaker wishes her mind were destroyed, and another where her mind resembles the movement of the mink. The word “leapt” creates similar arcs the speaker earlier associates with the mink’s movement to herself. Rather than the speaker’s memories being the victim to the mink, her memories are instead the “predator” (7). Despite the speaker’s wishes, her history will be inside her, as an “absolute” (6) permanence, that she describes through the mink. 

In the last stanza, the possibility of the mink being a representation of the speaker’s history is confirmed through the speaker’s description of history. Instead of the mink revealing the speaker’s memories, history is what inhabits the mink’s characteristics. The speaker writes that “history bounds” (29). “Bounds,” again, paints an arched shape, paralleling the mink’s run in the first stanza. Following, the speaker characterizes history with traits exclusive to primarily minks, carrying through the mink’s earlier malice towards the rabbit with history’s “daggering teeth” (31), with “daggering” being a clear representation of a predator, and “teeth” connecting to the mink’s bite. Considering all that was previously established about the mink, history, to the speaker, is a killer. History is a killer that moves like sine and cosine. Periodically, a painful memory resurfaces, and the repetition of remembering traumatic experiences such as a death is quite nearly as difficult as actually living through that death again, but remembering is not a choice. Remembering one’s history is so random that one may relive the death of a hardly known man when she sees a mink: a mink that is connected to the memory only through its movement that vaguely resembles the island “arcs” (21) nearby the man.