The Tide Rises Tide Falls

“The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” -- Analysis of Imagery on Characterization

In the poem, “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the author uses sight, touch, and sound to compare a mortal man to the immortality of the tide. The tide is described to be slow and ceaseless, and therefore an everlasting cycle. Longfellow describes the beach around the time that “twilight darkens,” giving a strong visual representation of the “damp and brown” coast. These dark, natural colors of the purples and blues of twilight, and the earthy brown of the beach are colors often associated with tranquility. With tranquility comes slow-moving; the tide is slow-moving. n addition to the peace and slow nature of the tide is the idea of

Knowing that people often walk on beaches, it can be assumed that the tide will continue to erase footprints on its shores, creating the idea of a cycle; footprints are left behind, the tide wipes them away, more footprints are made, and so on. These two characteristics in the tide contribute to the idea that the tide has a quality of immortality. On the other hand, a traveler’s actions are written to contrast the tide’s immortality, and emphasize the human’s own mortality. At the beginning of the poem, after describing the beach at twilight, Longfellow describes a traveler who “hastens” towards town. The word “hastens” creates a strong visual of a quickly hurrying man. Becase this is included in the same stanza as the tide’s description, it is clearer to readers the difference between the scurrying man, and the serene tide. Slow and fast are complete antonyms, emphasizing just how different the man is from the tide. Near the end of the poem, the traveler “nervermore returns to the shore.” This shows that the traveler has no cycle like the tide’s, since he will never repeat his actions. The final line of the poem again shows how different the tide is from the traveler, by saying that the tide rises and falls. This line is