Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Thirteen Ways of Looking
at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
Blackbird Theme of Choices  Choices occur at several levels of
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." At the most general
level, the reader has a choice of thirteen ways to look at a
blackbird. Do you find one way more compelling than the others?
You have the power to accept or reject any of these
perspectives. Stevens just wants you to know that you have
options. At a more detailed level, the humans in the poem
express indecisive behavior, though indecisiveness is not
portrayed as a terrible thing. Choices are a part of the
complexity of the life, and only the "bawds of euphony" would
have it any other way.  Questions About Choices    1. Did you
find one way of looking at the blackbird more compelling,
convincing, interesting than the others?   2. What would be your
own subjective explanation of the metaphor of a tree with three
blackbirds in section II?   3. Why do you think