Frustration’s Armored Aroma Skunk Hour by Robert Lowell and The Armadillo by Elizabeth Bishop are two closely related poems. Both share the theme of an animal carrying with it natural defenses, and the image of an isolated spectator. However, there is one important contrast between these poems: The Armadillo portrays a creature who cannot comprehend the events destroying the life about it, whereas the speaker in Skunk Hour understands, possibly too well, the events …showed first 75 words of 825 total…

…showed last 75 words of 825 total…As in Skunk Hour by Robert Lowell, the armadillo is a spectator. However, unlike the skunk, the armadillo is armored. While nature is affected and destroyed by the fire balloons falling from the sky in The Armadillo, the armadillo, itself, remains virtually unaffected. Although the speaker grows frustrated at its own lack of understanding concerning the destruction of life, it does not feel the loneliness and pain the speaker in Skunk Hour so thoroughly comprehends.