Sestina Themes
The Home
Everything seems just fine on the surface in "Sestina." The grandmother and grandchild are in the kitchen making tea and having an afternoon snack together. Cozy and cute, right? But something is t...
Time
"Sestina" addresses the passing of time by the change of season. The nifty thing is, in order to show that time moves on, Bishop actually shows us how it's cyclical. So we get the sense (especially...
Isolation
Maybe at first it looks like the grandmother and the child are getting along while they're making jokes from the almanac, but we quickly see they're a million miles away from one another. They're t...
Transformation
The turn of the season certainly signals change in "Sestina," as it does just about everywhere else. The weather's changing, the temperature's dropping, and especially through the lens of the grand...