Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Linda Pastan's poem "It Is Raining on the House of Anne Frank" juxtaposes the mundane reality of a rainy day with the profound and haunting history encapsulated within the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. The poem explores themes of memory, suffering, and the ways in which history is preserved and experienced by those who come after. Through her vivid imagery and careful attention to the details of the tourists’ experience, Pastan invites readers to reflect on the weight of history, the act of remembrance, and the often uncomfortable confrontation with the past.

The poem opens with a simple, yet evocative image: "It is raining on the house / of Anne Frank." The rain, a common natural occurrence, takes on a symbolic weight when it falls on a site of such deep historical significance. The house of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis and wrote her famous diary before being captured and killed, becomes a site of pilgrimage for those who visit. The rain here can be seen as a metaphor for tears or mourning, a quiet acknowledgment of the tragedy that unfolded within those walls.

Pastan then shifts focus to the tourists, who are "herded together under the shadow / of their umbrellas." The choice of the word "herded" evokes a sense of passivity or even discomfort, as if the tourists are being moved through the site without fully engaging with the gravity of the history it represents. The umbrellas, which should provide shelter, instead cast a "shadow," suggesting that even in their attempts to protect themselves from the rain, the tourists are overshadowed by the weight of what they are experiencing. The phrase "perfectly silent tourists" emphasizes the solemnity of the moment, yet there is an underlying suggestion that this silence may be due to discomfort or a lack of true understanding, as the tourists "would rather be / somewhere else."

As the poem progresses, the tourists are described as waiting "on stairs / so steep they must rise / to some occasion." This line suggests the physical and emotional challenge of confronting the history of the Anne Frank House. The steep stairs symbolize the difficulty of facing such a heavy legacy, while the idea of rising "to some occasion" implies that there is an expectation for the tourists to acknowledge or respond to the history in a meaningful way. However, Pastan subtly questions whether this is possible, as the tourists move through spaces described as "the empty loft," "the quaint toilet," and "the skeleton / of a kitchen." These descriptions strip the spaces of their original life and vibrancy, reducing them to relics of a time now gone, mere skeletons of what they once were.

The poem further deepens its exploration of history with the image of a map "each of its arrows / a barb of wire." The map, which traditionally represents exploration and discovery, here becomes a symbol of suffering and confinement, its arrows transformed into barbed wire—an image closely associated with concentration camps and the Holocaust. The map with "all the dates, the expulsions, / the forbidding shapes / of continents" serves as a stark reminder of the widespread and systematic nature of the persecution that Anne Frank and millions of others faced. The continents, once places of diverse cultures and peoples, are now seen as forbidding and dangerous, shaped by the horrors of history.

The poem then transitions to another iconic site in Amsterdam: the Van Gogh Museum. Here, the rain continues, now falling on a place dedicated to another figure who experienced profound suffering. Pastan suggests that the tourists will "hurry next" to this museum, perhaps seeking a different kind of engagement with history and suffering. Van Gogh, known for his struggles with mental illness and his ability to capture light and color in his paintings, represents a different kind of tragedy. The "pure / center of light / within the dark circle / of his demons" symbolizes the way Van Gogh was able to find and express beauty even in the midst of his own personal darkness.

By juxtaposing the Anne Frank House with the Van Gogh Museum, Pastan draws a connection between different forms of suffering and the ways in which they are remembered and commemorated. Both Anne Frank and Vincent van Gogh left behind legacies that continue to resonate, yet the ways in which we engage with their histories can vary—from the solemn, almost obligatory pilgrimage to a site of atrocity, to the more aesthetic and perhaps detached appreciation of an artist’s work.

"It Is Raining on the House of Anne Frank" is a meditation on the act of remembrance and the complexities of engaging with history. Pastan captures the tension between the need to honor the past and the discomfort that can accompany such an endeavor. Through her careful attention to the tourists' experience, she highlights the challenges of truly understanding and connecting with the suffering of others, especially when that suffering is part of a collective history that we can never fully grasp. The poem leaves readers with a sense of the profound weight of history, the difficulty of confronting it, and the ways in which we seek to find light within the darkness of the past.

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