Artichoke

In "The Pangolin," Marianne Moore's substitution of words for other words or her use of metonymy, is evident throughout the entire poem. Despite her intelligent phrases, I found some of her other lines fairly humorous though they may not have been meant to be.

For example, the word artichoke seemed at first to be out of place in her poem,

"...This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped gizzard,"

It seems funny that it is put there, though I like the sound of it. The humor acts in two different ways at the same time, and the artichoke is in comparison to the pangolin. Moore's way of doing this is shocking because an artichoke is a stationary plant. However, the pattern on the leaves of artichokes and on the pangolin resemble one another. The pangolin is an animal that I had never seen or heard of before this poem, so it is a surprise that it can be similar to a plant that is fairly well-known. The humor in Moore's writing is the image that the reader gets after visualizing an artichoke paired with a pangolin, because the reader may think of a walking artichoke... which is in a sense, what Marianne Moore is referring to.

Moore's fascination with the pangolin allows her to describe the armored plates in a way that would otherwise be overlooked. Her humor adds richness to the poem by putting it into context with a scaly covering of an artichoke. Overall, if I understand the meaning of metonymy, I think Moore is successful in making artichoke and pangolin mean the same thing.