Jacques Prevert... Dejeuner de Matin?

Question

Is he writing from a woman's perspective, gay man's perspective, a son's perspective, or other?

Answer 1

Good question! I loved reading the poetry of Jacques Prevert when I was in high school!

I don't know if it matters whether the speaker of the poem is a man or a woman. I don't see this as a "straight" poem or a "gay" poem; it's a poem. I suppose the speaker could be a child or a parent, but I've always read it as the lover, spouse, or partner of the one who is so silent in the morning.

This one always moved me because my parents divorced when I was in high school, and near the end of their marriage, what was once noisy grew eerily silent. When parents fight a lot, at least they are still trying to communicate. There is still passion. When there is total silence, it's as if there is this huge, dead, rotting elephant in the livingroom that everyone will tip-toe around but no one will talk about.

I hear the speaker (narrator) of the poem as still having fight left in him or her--the speaker can at least cry--he or she is feeling, aware of the loss, mourning. But the one stirring the coffee and lighting his cigarette before leaving moves through his morning routine with no connection to the speaker or to emotion. The "he" of the poem is done with the relationship and gone.

Read more of Jacques Prevert's poetry, and thanks for giving me a chance to look at his work again! You can find works by Prevert and English translations at:

http://www.ductape.net/~mass/poem3a.html#DM