On Binary Oppositions in Filling Station

The modern American poet Elizabeth Bishop’s craftsmanship is fully shown in the keen, delicate observation, ingenious musicality, pure and accurate poetic diction, rich and vivid images in her poems. Filling Station is a poem depicting a decayed family-run station, unified by the pervasive presence of oil, and complete with filth and beauty, disorder and order, hope and decay, masculine and feminine, staying at home and going out for travelling, and many pairs of implicit or explicit binary oppositions. This paper is intended to explore the theme and the aesthetic characteristics from the perspective of binary oppositions, to display the profound beauty prevails dirt and filth; hope and happiness overwhelms decay and poverty; powerful, universal love keeps everything eternal in this little filling station.