The Snow Man Philosophical Viewpoints: Perspectivism Quotes

Really? Must we, Wally? We'd rather have a mind of cupcakes, or a mind of jet skis, or a mind of baseball. But if we must have a mind of winter, we guess we'd like to know what it can do for us. Luckily, Stevens answers this question—a mind of winter allows us to see winter with no blinders on. Instead of viewing winter as a cold, miserable season that's wedged between a cool fall and a glorious spring, we can see that winter is nothing we don't make it. It just is. It becomes something when our imaginations and minds make it so.

Bleak, much? What we think Stevens is getting at here is that, without our individual perspectives and imaginations, the world might be a very boring, desolate place. It's our minds that give misery to the wind, sure, but it's also our minds that "behold junipers shagged with ice" and "the distant glitter of the January sun." Those things are beautiful—not bare—and it's our minds that make them so.

Yikes. Now there's a doozy. Seriously, what are we supposed to make of these final lines? There's a nothing that's not there? And a nothing that is there? We think that what Stevens is getting at here is that if you're in the right mindset, you don't project anything onto what you're seeing and perceiving; in other words, you don't behold anything that isn't there. And you also see what's around you for what it really is: nothing. That is, it's nothing without the ideas, images, and feelings your mind projects onto it.'