Walt Whitman's Use of the Theme of Death in His Poetry

Due to this, the poem is extremely reflective on the things Keats considers important to him, namely life, death and his imagination. By using the nightingale to embody these aspects, Keats is effective, in my opinion, in attempting to deal with the matter at hand, and involving me in his struggle between life and death. One of the things which the nightingale represents to Keats is death. This is not surprising as he is near death and so it is influencing the way he thinks. At times Keats welcomes death and at other times is undecided, but always the nightingale is used as a representation for it.

The speaker is on the journey to the final resting spot, as the following lines suggest “We passed before a House / th... ... middle of paper ... ...ed surrounded by grieving loved ones. This poem is also different, as the speaker is illustrating the feelings and the surroundings as the speaker is dying, describing what is going on as it happens. It is not a memory like the first poem. Although, both poems are similar in subject matter, they tell stories so divergent. “Because I could not stop for Death” had a stronger impact on me.

Keats describes his own reasons for fearing death in a way that causes the reader to reflect on death and its effects. He does so by using symbols, images, comparisons, and sounds to generate a thoughtful mood in his audience. The tone he uses throughout the poem also contributes to the effectiveness it has on its readers. Concentrating on fame, love, and death, Keats organizes the elements of poetry into a formal sonnet that expresses the reasons behind his fear of death and urges his audience to contemplate on that same fear.

A feeling that is upon one where they are almost in a n unresponsive state. Death or life isn't mentioned in this first stanza but, as the poem continues one can infer that Dickinson is talking about life. “great pain” describes the feeling when one looses a loved one. Dickinson also writes about a “formal feeling” or the feeling after the death that one feels for the rest of their lives, like being incomplete. Dickinson continues and writes “The Nerves sit ceremonious like Tombs-” This means the behavior one might practice at a funeral which would relate to “Nerves” sitting ceremoniously.

In conclusion, Plath is successful in the poetry because she managed to express certain things such as death in the variety of ways. She views death as being something horrible, a condition at which people are de-humanized and lack all th emotions and feelings. At the same time Plath connects death to life and makes an assumption that it is impossible to understand life without knowing that death exists. Dickinson, on the contrary, depicts death as something humans are both afraid of and at the same time are waiting for all their lives. Death in the poetry of Dickinson is not so horrible as in the writing of Plath.

Both poets have portrayed death in their poetry as a relief, a salvation, or escape to a better place- another life. They have formulated death as a positive yet ambiguous state. In Dickinson's "Narrow Fellow in the Grass" and Whitman's "Wound-Dresser", there exists a link in both poets ideas of death through each individuals style of writing. Both poets, through their distinct voice and word-choice, arrive at the same conclusion of death being a good and positive thing. Whitman's "Wound-Dresser" tells the story of an old man remembering his war-tales of watching soldiers die.

There are many similarities between these pieces of writings such as the poet’s use of metaphors, imagery, tone and structure. Although these two poems express death in opposite ways they have a common theme which states that death is a part of life. Both of these poems express the different ways that people deal with death; Auden’s poem depicts dark emotions while Dickinson’s tone suggests understanding and acceptance of death. The use of metaphors is present throughout each of these poems. In “Funeral Blues” Auden uses metaphors to allow the readers to understand the speaker’s pain.

Both Thomas and Poe’s poems are written about the death of their loved ones. Thomas and Poe have done an amazing job in helping the readers feel the pain and grief that motivated them to write these beautiful pieces of literature, and the two poems share very similar themes. In “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, the speaker first addresses an unknown character and advises him not to “go gentle into that good night” (Thomas). The the third sentence, which is the last of the first stanza, he tells us to fight with rage against the dying of the light. By breaking down Thomas’ words and trying to find the underlying meaning in these first few sentences, he is trying to urge the unknown character to fight like crazy against the end of life.

The tone of the poem could, depending on one’s station in life, be about fear or peace. Dickinson makes use of the mood to display the decay of the body and the emptiness of death. The encompassing nothingness around the body depicts the end of mourning, the end of the season. The fly that comes upon the rotting and decaying body depicts the circle of life that occurs as flesh feeds the surrounding environment as it decomposes. While death is widely considered negative and the end of the road, I understand this poem to be a journey into freedom, freedom from pain and the negativity of this mortal coil.

Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is perceived through the eyes of the mourner. The tone is sad and the state of mind of the speaker is full of melancholy. Although the main theme of the poem is about death and the shattering impact it leaves on the survivors, there are secondary themes of love and the chaos that ensues in the life of the bereaved. In the first two stanzas, the speaker deals with the rituals of the funeral and wants the world to stand still because the world has stopped for him. The speaker wishes that all sounds be silenced and has a desire for time to stop.