Doors by Carl Sandburg the Essay

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Lines 3 and 6 are important as well because they deviate from the couplet pattern and offer up different themes as well. In addition to the shadows and ghosts them, the poet notes "doors forget but only doors know what it is that doors forget." This is the most oblique line in the poem, making you question what a door can forget. The rest of the poem relates the door directly to people, so the reader recognizes the metaphor and immediate imagines how it might apply to his or her life. The final line, however, has the door as the subject, which is a departure in the poem. Now the reader is being forced to consider what a door is and how it can forget. The length of this line is the same as the two preceding lines, so it is clearly connected to the concepts in the 4,5 couplet. The lesson is not clear -- perhaps something about the reader shouldn't be concerned about the things the reader doesn't know. The door itself has a role and if that role can be defined then the door itself can be personified.

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This shift in tone at the end -- from the straightforward metaphor to something less clear -- is risky. It threatens to make the last line a meaningless throwaway line, when perhaps the last line in the key line in the entire poem. The problem is that the line there is also a shift in the way the reader is expected to think, from clear and obvious to guessing what the poet is trying to convey and from thinking about doors as a third-party entity as they relate to one's life to thinking about the door as a personified entity capable of its own action -- that is a challenging shift that undermines the effectiveness of the poem.

Doors

An open door says, "Come in."

A shut door says, "Who are you?"

Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.

If a door is shut and you want it shut, why open it?

If a door is open and you want it open, why shut it?

Doors forget but only….....

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