Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen poetry outline

Thesis: In Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen, the poet uses allusions in order to emphasize an ironic situation.

1.      The speaker juxtaposes his faith in God with acts that cause God’s intentions to appear malevolent.

a.       The speaker opens the poem with “I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind” (1). The speaker affirms his faith in God, but the opening line is defense in that faith. The speaker needs to defend his faith because the speaker immediately starts stating seemingly malevolent acts of God in the following lines.

b.      The speaker states “tortured Tantalus / is baited by the fickle fruit” (5). Tantalus is being tortured horrifically, but this torture does not sway the speaker’s faith in God. Tantalus’s torture should cause a person to question the kindness of God, but the speaker has a reason for his unwavering faith.

2.      The speaker continues the poem with another allusion to God’s torture, and defends God once again.

a.       The speaker explains “brute caprice dooms Sisyphus” (7). If it is only caprice dooms Sisyphus, then Sisyphus should not have the sentence of pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity. The line about Sisyphus causes the reader to question if the punishments sentenced by God are fit for the crime.

b.      The speaker follows the line about Sisyphus with “Inscrutable His ways are” (9). God’s actions cannot be judged, for His reasons cannot be understood by everyday people. The people can only accept God’s actions for what they are, and must keep faith that His actions are always correct.  

3.      The speaker ends the poem with an ironic situation.

a.       The speaker ends the poem with “Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: / To make a poet black and bid him sing!” (13-14). This poem was written before the Civil Rights Movement. The last two lines display irony within the poem because it highlights the contrast between the torture of Sisyphus and Tantalus, and the ability for a ‘poet black’. The last two lines also explain the speaker’s unwavering faith in God. It is implied that the speaker is the ‘poet black’, and, therefore, God has been good to the speaker.