Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

The blackbird symbolizes God due to its omnipresence. Like God, the blackbird has a universal nature. The blackbird is “one” (Line 11) with men and women, as people who believe in God tend to believe that God is a part of them. God is also believed to be all-knowing, and the blackbird is aware of the speaker’s thoughts, with the speaker declaring, “[T]he blackbird is involved / In what I know” (Lines 33-34). The inclusion of “Haddam” (Line 25) arguably alludes to the Garden of Eden, turning the man and woman in Section 4 into Adam and Eve and the blackbird into the godlike entity presiding over the heavenly place. As a symbol of God, the blackbird gives the poem a spiritual power.

Conversely, the blackbird can represent Satan—a transgressive or evil force. Its connection to knowledge alludes to the Tree of Knowledge and the fruit that God forbade Adam and Eve to eat. The image of the blackbird walking around “the feet / Of the women” (Lines 28-29) in Haddam furthers the serpent/Devil imagery, with the blackbird slithering near the women on the ground, possibly tempting them to transgress. The chilling images of the blackbird in Sections 1 and 13 also suggest a cunning, scheming