New Rule (Themes)

Themes

Relationships

Although it is not totally clear until more than halfway through the poem, the poet is coming to terms with a relationship that has ended badly. Her boyfriend or husband has left her "in our fifth year," but it is clear that she still has feelings for him, since she refers to him as "my true love." One assumes that, since the female poet refers to a "night of hooks," she is painfully alone. She is also reliving the death of her relationship, as the dying electric razor, or "man blade" signifies. The poem becomes a process by which the poet confronts her feelings about her lost love and her loneliness: "Do you fear the same things as / I fear?"; works through these emotions — the "peg of tears" at the end of the poem depicts the poet's final tears shed for her lost love; and moves on with her life: "The way to hold on is / afterwords / so / clear." To the poet at the end of the poem, the answer to her loneliness and despair is now as clear as the ice on the tree.

Seeking Guidance from Nature

This revelation does not come from the poet alone. She first begins thinking about the "hard" quality of her breakup when she notices the "hard new ice" outside. Already, nature is providing the setting within which the poet will confront her past. Nature's role increases with the introduction of the squirrel, which becomes the poet's guide for working through her past. As the squirrel makes its way precariously down the tree, "clutching his branch," the poet sees in the squirrel's actions her own life and troubled past. With the squirrel as guide, the poet begins her own precarious journey down the path of her memory. When the squirrel falls off its branch and catches another one, the poet sees her own ability to jump from one branch — her old relationship — to a new one. Without the natural setting and the example from the squirrel, the poet might not have made this connection.

Starting Over

Nature alone is not enough to help the poet move on with her life. The timing of her revelation is crucial, too. She addresses the problems of her past on New Year's Day. Anything that represents the beginning of a cycle, such as New Year's Day, has traditionally been associated with starting over. One could just as easily attach the same significance arbitrarily to any other day of the year. The poet could have decided to move on with her life on May 25 or November 7. Yet, there is a reason why New Year's Day seems appropriate to the poet, and to so many others. Human lives are lived in cycles. Each human goes through a life cycle from birth to death. This natural cycle contains smaller cycles, such as the year, which is divided into four seasons in most places. In addition, most humans instinctively organize their lives to fit this natural pattern of cycles. For example, many people mark the passing of time in their life by their birth years. Birthdates may be celebrated annually, often with great fanfare. The same is true for calendar years. Many humans celebrate New Year's Eve as the close of one year, before beginning another. With New Year's Day especially, this new beginning is often marked by a promise, or resolution, to oneself to make a change. Sometimes this change is physical, such as going on a diet or getting more exercise. In the case of the poet, however, the change is emotional. She has been seeking a "way to hold on." Now, at the beginning of a new cycle, after working through the pain of her lost relationship, she has discovered a new path to lead her to happiness.

Topics for Further Study

• Discuss the origin and history of New Year's resolutions, including the countries or regions that still subscribe to this tradition and any statistics regarding how many people actually keep their resolutions.
• Choose one of your own New Year's resolutions that you currently have or have had in the past. Write a short poem that depicts this resolution.
• Writers often use the coldness of winter to signify a death of some kind, as Carson does in "New Rule." Find another poem from any point in history that uses winter in this way, and compare it to Carson's poem.
• Research the worst ice storms in the United States and Canada in the last two hundred years. Plot them on a time line and write a small description for each one of them that gives the date, location, and severity of the storm. Also, write a small report on how an ice storm is created.