Disillusionment of Ten O'clock
Disillusionment of Ten O'clock - meaning Summary
Imagination Versus Domestic Conformity
Stevens contrasts mundane, colorless domestic life with the vividness of imaginative dreams. Ordinary people in their white nightgowns sleep without fanciful visions, symbolizing social conformity and spiritual numbness. Only a marginal figure—the drunken sailor—still catches "Tigers / In red weather," representing rare, untamed imagination that resists banality. The poem quietly urges recognition of creative life amid routine.
Read Complete AnalysesThe houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches Tigers In red weather.
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