English 202B
Analysis Paper
Washing Your Feet
Monday morning, 7:30: alarm clock sounds, and I hop out of bed, apply make-up, get
dressed, pack my gym bag, and arrive at Starbucks by 8:20. I order my tall, unsweetened coffee
with room, fill the remainder with half-and-half, and scout out a place to sit. I usually get first
dibs on tables, one of the perks of arriving early. I always pick the same one – the one in the back
of the shop nearby the bathrooms. It’s the best. The ones located in the front and middle of the
shop often catch a draft of cold air when a customer enters. Also, as more customers come and
go throughout the morning, the temptation to people-watch and eavesdrop greatly increases. My
special table helps to avoid this distraction, tucking me away in a corner so that the majority of
customers are blocked from my line of vision. I drink my coffee and cream merrily, pulling out
my computer and plugging it into the outlet conveniently located on the side of my table (another
perk). The rest of the day contains the following activities: jiu-jitsu training, break for studying,
class, more studying time, more jiu-jitsu training, dinner, and then relaxing or meeting with a
friend. With non-stop activity in the hours to come, my Starbucks time allows me to reflect and
prepare mentally, to get excited for the day. This routine gets the day started, and serves as the
primary factor of why I so enthusiastically hop out of bed.
However, what would happen on one ordinary morning, if I were to walk to Starbucks
only to find out that it was closed? I would have to find a different coffee shop. But where?
Dunkin Donuts would tempt me into purchasing a double chocolate donut and transitively, 7
grams of saturated fat. I buy coffee in the Hub at 2:30 before my class and prefer to not drink the
same type of coffee twice in one day, and common knowledge maintains that Irving’s is only
good for the Baha Chicken Sandwich. The Creamery does not provide an acceptable
environment to study due to noisy freshmen flowing in and out. Neither Panera nor Saints have
tables that amount to anything in comparison with my special table at Starbucks.
My day completely thrown off, I would start the morning not only coffee-less, but
completely disgruntled. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines routine as “habitual or mechanical
performance of an established procedure.” Considering the emotional dependence on a certain
activity, does the word ‘routine’ truly give it justice?
In Washing Your Feet, John Ciardi discusses the difficulty of washing his feet after
becoming fat. He labels this activity as a ritual rather than a routine. Webster’s dictionary
defines the former as a “ceremonial act or action.” This paper will explore what ritual means to
the poet, and at the same time, discuss diction and rhetorical mechanisms that author uses to
exhibit this. Furthermore, once conceptualizing ritual itself, the paper draws on Washing Your
Feet to reveal what can happen when ritual is thrown in crisis, and how we should approach this
situation.
The Pleasures of Washing Your Feet
The author begins the poem writing, “Washing your feet is hard when you get fat. In
lither times the act was unstrained and pleasurable. You spread the toes for signs of athlete’s
foot. You used creams, and rubbing alcohol, and you powdered. You bent over, all in order, and
did everything.”
What makes washing his feet pleasurable to the author? Is the process a mere routine, or
an actual ritual?
Ciardi vividly illustrates the careful foot-washing process in a way that renders it as
completely natural, taking no effort at all to carry out. More than an arbitrary procedure, the
process of checking for athlete’s foot, and applying the cream, rubbing alcohol powder composes
a system that the author controls and maintains. The sentence You bent over, all in order, and
(you) did everything denotes the sense of control and even empowerment that the author receives
from foot washing. The sense of control and the facility of implementing the system serve as the
true factors the make the act pleasurable, rather than the result of clean feet.
This ‘system’ may be perceived as a mere routine, but in the next stanzas it becomes
clear that it holds a greater significance. “Mary Magdalene made a prayer meeting out of (feet
washing.) She, of course, was not washing her feet but God’s. Degas painted ladies washing
their own feet. Somehow they also seemed to be washing God’s feet.” The analogies, connecting
a seemingly insignificant routine to a religious experience, captures the meaning, importance, and
even sanctity that foot washing represents. They petition and persuade our logic by capturing
moments in which foot-washing portrays events of true significance. They provide logos to
convince us that foot-washing is more than a routine – it is ceremonial, and has a holy underlining
to it.
Washing his feet gives the author a pleasure and sense of control. Through it, he enjoys a
semi-religious experience that allows us to characterize it as a ritual rather than routine. This
distinction contains immense significance because it allows us to internalize the intimate affects
of a ritual in crisis. However, does Ciardi truly mean to suggest that foot-washing was his only
ritual to suffer when becoming fat? No. Instead, foot-washing serves as a mechanism to allow
first allow the audience relate more readily to the author (and subsequently his dilemma), and
second, to generalize foot-washing as ritual itself.
Foot Washing and Beyond
Through the author’s description of foot washing, the author appeals to the audience’s
logic, using the rhetorical mechanism of logos. He could have chosen any other ritual to write
about – cooking, studying, exercising, etc, but instead chose one of the most basic rituals that
most people must also partake in. In other rituals, such as cooking a meal, enough variation could
exist in the way a person carries out the ritual (if he or she conducts the same ritual at all),
rendering it foreign to members of the audience. Thus, the mere choice of feet washing instantly
makes the author relatable to the majority of the audience and makes room for appeal through
logos.
Let’s go back to first statement of the poem, “Washing your feet is hard when you get
fat.” Despite the clear disruption to foot-washing becoming fat has created, we may also
interpret the ritual of feet washing as a generalization for other important rituals, and resolve this
area of doubt.
The poet states, To touch the body anywhere should be ritual, To touch one’s own body
anywhere should be ritual. One may argue that the author asserts this claim in order to suggest
the sanctity of the body. However, we should instead interpret this statement as an attempt to
generalize ritual itself. Prior to this stanza, the author already expanded his label of ritual from
washing the feet to touching any body, anywhere. Admitting that rituals are not confined to the
feet, or to a certain are of the body, or to a certain body, the author implies the limitless nature of
creating an activity into ritual.
A Ritual in Crisis
Because Ciardi has made himself relatable to the audience, and because he has
generalized ritual itself, the audience can imagine the repercussions of a disrupted ritual with
greater facility. Formally effortless, whose idea “should breathe easy…Fat makes the ritual
wheezy and a bit ridiculous.” The author suggests that getting fat not only disrupts his footwashing ritual, but makes a mockery out of it. Ritual, once pleasurable and sacred, becomes silly.
Furthermore, assuming foot-washing serves as a generalization of ritual itself, the
audience begins to understand the dilemma of becoming fat. In addition to the foot-washing
ritual, more meaningful rituals surely became casualties of growing fat. If the ritual of washing
feet takes such a toll on him, imagine the damage done to rituals such as getting dressed, walking,
or playing with his children.
Finally, as ritual formally granted the author a sense of control, becoming fat has stripped
that power from him. He ends the poem stating, “I wish I could paint like Degas or believe like
Mary. It is sad to be naked and to lack talent. It is sad to be fat and to have dirty feet.” He
engages the audience with a strong, almost shameless use of pathos that generates a pathetic,
powerless image for whom the reader cannot help but feel compassion. Via this pathos, we grasp
the sentiments of vulnerability and incapability disrupted ritual subjects the author to.
The Necessity and Danger of Ritual
This admittance of powerlessness sheds light on the true significance of ritual, allowing
us to answer the question of “so what?” or “who cares?” As Washing Your Feet exhibited, we
cling to ritual for the sense of control it provides us with. Even the most arbitrary of tasks
transform into more than a routine – they become untouchable and holy, whose maintenance
becomes ceremonial to attend to. However, we do not appreciate the true fulfillment ritual carries
until a disruption to it occurs that throws and we are no longer able to participate in it.
When I went to São Paulo, Brazil, the closest Starbucks was located twenty five minutes
away from my apartment. I no longer enjoyed the luxury of beginning my morning with my
ritual of almost two and a half years. My Brazilian host-family offered me instant coffee. They
didn’t drink half-and-half – I had to make do with whole milk. Also, instead of beginning the
morning the peace of my own thoughts, alone at my special table, I found myself sharing the
kitchen table with four Brazilian chatterboxes. I found myself frustrated and annoyed, forced to
start the morning with coffee I disliked and Brazilians whose noisy antics I didn’t wish to
entertain so early in the day. Like Ciardi, I felt powerless when stripped of my ritual
After a couple months in Brazil, I began to format a different ritual. I found that when I
added a little chocolate power to my coffee, I enjoyed it just as much as the Starbucks coffee
(though it tasted completely different.) I learned to reconcile my preferences for quiet with
spending time with the Brazilian family, starting the first half hour of the morning at them with
the table, and then bringing my coffee in to my room for another half hour of last minute studying
or reflection. I formatted a new, different ritual in correspondence with a new and different
chapter in my life. Once returning to the United States three months ago, I even found myself
missing my Brazilian ritual.
Through this experience, I realized that ritual plays a necessary and fundamental part of
our lives. Without it, not only would our lives possess less order, but also less fulfillment. Just as
the most seemingly insignificant activity, foot-washing, awarded Ciardi with pleasure, we
maximize the satisfaction in activities by making them ritual. Yet at the same time, we must not
cling onto it so tightly that we become unwilling to allow change to occur in fear of disruption to
our ritual. Doing so makes us miss out on a lot. Life continuously changes, and so should our
rituals. As change occurs, it does not mean that lack of ritual must substitute former rituals, but a
different ritual must take its place.
Washing Your Feet nicely portrays that role and importance of ritual in our lives through
the example of foot-washing. By appealing to both logos and pathos, the audience displays the
satisfaction of ritual, and the frustration caused by its termination. But, perhaps without meaning
to, Ciardi teaches us an even greater lesson – to not allow ritual’s disruption cast us in a state of
powerlessness and frustration. Rather than wallow in the woes of dirty feet, the author should
create a new ritual, one that allows him to wash his feet in a different, but just as effective
manner. In this way, he enjoys the pleasure of ritual once more, so that he no longer feels naked
and without talent. In addition, it wouldn’t hurt to throw in a morning jog.