In the Waiting Room

“In the waiting room” by Elizabeth Bishop is about a realization of how big the world is. Bishop was sitting in the waiting room of a dentist’s office with her Aunt Consuelo. This poem just on appearance is describing pages that Bishop sees in National Geographic, a magazine that had articles about people and places around the world. The poem states that she has fear, but does not explain why. Digging into the poem a little deeper, though, one can see that she is first taken aback and awed by different cultures. It is as if she has culture shock from sitting in the waiting room.

She read first about the volcanoes, then explorers, a dead man on a pole, and babies whose heads were pointed because string had been wrapped around it. The image that caused the most fear for Bishop were the breasts of the naked women. This is because it caused the most culture shock for the young girl. I know when I was younger and I saw pictures like these, the first pictures would appall me and make my heart hurt for the people, but the ones like the naked women from other cultures would cause my stomach to turn over as well. In fact, I would feel a little dirty for seeing it. But then my heart would hurt, too, because… that’s normal for them? These mixtures of feelings and culture shock felt like fear. This is what I believe Bishop was experiencing – probably even more than me because the world was not connected much yet. In other words, there was not media and transportation to easily connect one part of the world to another. This magazine was new.

She pictured her aunt and herself falling through space as she was reading this. It seemed that she felt she was tumbling throughout the world being able to see the pictures. She was astounded by the pictures, but felt a connection through the physical similarities of the people. She was beginning to overcome the culture shock.

Then she was back in the present day, having had culture shock without even moving from the waiting room.