Precis: "Advice from the Experts"

In “Advice from the Experts”, Bill Knott, using a sarcastic tone, asserts that people who claim they are authority figures, don’t truly understand the full picture. He creates this idea through antithesis and irony. The first half of the poem focuses on the perspective of the individual, while the second half of the poem focuses on the perspectives of the “gawkers” and “experts” looking from above. Through the creation of these two sides, Knott depicts how two people can see something in two different ways. The group sees the person on ground level as a possible suicide jumper, while the person below just sees a bunch of people hanging off a building. This scene also creates a certain sense of irony as well. The people on the building are “perched, along its ledges”, which makes it seem as though they are about to jump. However, the irony is that they call out to the person on the curb to not jump. Their perspectives are quite confused because they don't see the whole picture. They just see their perspective. Bill Knott creates the notion that to truly understand someone, the group must step into the individual’s shoes, through antithesis and irony.