poetry paper

In Randall Jarrell's "The State," the speaker describes the sacrifices made by his family for the war. Although the speaker tries to rationalize giving his loved ones "for the State," in the end, he is left feeling empty and alone. Jarrell's use of understatement demonstrates the speaker’s agony and inability to cope with the devastation brought on by the war. Little, by little everything the speaker loves is take. Though at first he is unable to admit what the war has done to his family, the poem ends with the speaker’s realization. That he has nothing.

Jarrell begins the poem by establishing that the speaker’s mother is dead. The speaker rationalized the murder by explaining that "she dies...for the State." Farrell uses an informal tone and colloquial language to show how terrifying this experience was to the speaker. When his mother dies, it makes him nervous, not saddened nor lonely, which are what most people feel after the death of a loved one. "They," the state struck fear into the speaker when they killed his mother and the speaker has no other option but to rationalize her death and move on because he dead his own life. This attitude is consistent throughout the first stanza until the last two lines. At the end of the first stanza the speaker stops masking. His emotions and tells the audience how he "minded" his mother's death. The speaker states "how queer it was to stare, at one of them not sitting there." Jarrell's use of a period shows the audience the finality of the death. Even though the speaker is clearly troubled by it, he moves on because he can't stop and think about it.

As Jarrell transitions to stanza two, the speaker mimics the form of the first stanza, beginning with “when they,” followed by the actio...

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...eaker connects their disappearances to his own life, saying “They were there, and I saw them, and that is my life.” The speaker finally comes to terms with the fact that he was not helping the War, he only allowed his family to be destroyed by it, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Jarrell ends the poem with a paradox, “I’m dead, and I want to die,” the speaker says. Although he is still physically living, the pain of living without his loved ones has proved too much to bear. Farrell’s uses of parallel structure and repeated syntax emphasized the speaker’s internal struggle of coping with his family’s disappearance for the War effort. As the speaker tries to rationalize the states actions it is apparent that Jarrell shows the audience how War takes everything from those who have nothing, and leaves them alone only when they are so empty they want to die.