Essay, Research Paper

Death has been and ever will be an interesting and compelling subject among poets and writers likewise. Death sheds a cryptic valley over life and is frequently avoided or dreaded within people doing diverseness among the reactions of modern poesy and idea. Mortality can be treated as a crisis, a finish, with significance or without, every bit good as ( unhappily ) by some as a end. Death provides a broad spectrum of thoughts that can be expanded upon with self-respect or as a greathearted ideal. The poets that I have read and pondered present an array of penetration on the subject ; from its grotesquery to its unimportance. They approach or meditate upon decease with disgust every bit good as with unconcern. Overall I think that although the poets each dissect and construe our inevitable brush in fluctuation they all would hold in its enigma and conclusiveness.

To populate, particularly with comfort and regard, can frequently be, and is normally, a hard every bit good as ineluctable undertaking. Diing can be viewed in much the same manner. Although you sometimes have a pick, frequently decease is sudden and suffering and can stop a life with small or no grace. I think Randall Jarrell would hold with me on this point. In his verse form & # 8220 ; The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner & # 8221 ; Jarrell explicates upon a state of affairs that although is sometimes forced at a individual, is frequently ( particularly within his time-period ) viewed with high respect in the population. What would be a better manner to decease than supporting one & # 8217 ; s state and making your portion in liberating 1000000s of laden people? But this & # 8220 ; weather & # 8221 ; act by a adult male who is terrified terminals in what I would see as humiliation. His parents or friends would non see his decease as disgraceful or anything but the manner in which his remains were desecrated would hold certainly been gross outing. & # 8220 ; When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. & # 8221 ; The thought of person rinsing the flesh and backbones of a late deceased individual portrays how hapless the conclusiveness of one & # 8217 ; s live can be. This scared adult male who & # 8220 ; fell into the State & # 8221 ; straight from his & # 8220 ; mother & # 8217 ; s sleep & # 8221 ; was perchance given a hero & # 8217 ; s entombment but at the same clip his carcase remains were & # 8220 ; hosed & # 8221 ; out of the turret. This is an about obscene gesture. Isaac Rosenburg analyzes a decease in war in much the same manner. In his verse form & # 8220 ; Dead Man & # 8217 ; s Dump & # 8221 ; he comments, & # 8220 ; A adult male & # 8217 ; s encephalons splattered on A stretcher-bearers face ; & # 8221 ; this horrid observation points out to us how un-heroic decease on a battleground really is. Death as thought about by Jarrell and Rosenberg is non beautiful but mussy and perchance even an event of debasement.

Is decease a destiny that is left up to us? Or do we decease as the direct consequence of action, or perchance inactivity of others? This is a inquiry that will likely ever be argued and likely ne’er be answered ; the decision will at least non be ascertained by us mere persons. In the verse form & # 8220 ; Not Waving But Drowning & # 8221 ; this issue is touched upon either straight on indirectly by Stevie Smith and is perchance more of a background than a subject. The adult male who dies in the verse form ( which is I would besides name a narrative ) does hold control over his destiny in this state of affairs. Possibly if he were a better swimmer or would non hold eaten so much before he went out he would non hold been in this quandary, but that is beside the point. & # 8220 ; I was much further out than you thought, & # 8221 ; she says ( and to do my point I am taking all of this in the actual and non nonliteral signifier ) with a kind of shame. This suggests that the talker of this narrative had some control over this adult male & # 8217 ; s decease but was either to careless or non observant plenty to salvage his life. This adult male & # 8217 ; s destiny therefor was non wholly in his ain custodies, although it was non needfully in entire control of the storyteller either. This to me fundamentally implies that although destiny does rest in our custodies to some extent, it besides lies ( at least facets of it ) in the custodies of others. Another poet backs up this impression in an indirect and perchance even unwilled ( but likely intended ) mode. In the verse form & # 8220 ; The Hand That Signed the Paper & # 8221 ; Dylan Thomas discusses the power one bantam manus can hold over 1000000s of things and people. & # 8220 ; The manus that signed the paper felled a metropolis: & # 8221 ; is stated foremost off in the verse form. A individual in this verse form & # 8217 ; s universe would hold small control over their fate. The people of this metropolis could hold fled before it was demolished but they could hold besides stayed and died, or possib

ly even perished in the action of get awaying. Any decease related to the devastation of this metropolis would demo how a person’s decease is non up to himself or herself but that it is decided by destiny. ( Both their ain personal destinies every bit good as the destiny and determinations of others, for illustration: the existent being who signed the paper, or the individual who did non move to forestall the sign language. ) These state of affairss do non merely explain upon destiny, they besides show us how easy and all of a sudden one can decease. On a normal afternoon a adult male drowns. Or that same adult male could hold been sitting in a chair listening to the wireless when an officer marks a contract to bomb a specific metropolis and his house is diminished to a smouldering heap of blanched brick. This leads to my following subject. If we know we are traveling to decease, how should we populate? Or what should we make when sing decease?

This was brought up in the words and thoughts of several of the poets we read. Each gave their ain interesting turn to what they thought life was when compared or shown in conformity with decease and deceasing. I have already shown that certain poets believe that decease is an easy thing to come by, so now how would that associate to our lives? Theodore Roethke discusses this in his verse form & # 8220 ; The Waking. & # 8221 ; The phrase, & # 8220 ; I wake to kip, and take my waking slow & # 8221 ; is repeated several times throughout the verse form. This can connote several things. To & # 8220 ; wake & # 8221 ; is likely synonymous with & # 8220 ; to populate & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; to kip & # 8221 ; is likely related to & # 8220 ; to die. & # 8221 ; If you take your waking slow I would believe you would populate longer. If you took your waking fast ( or lived a & # 8220 ; fast & # 8221 ; life ) I would believe that he meant it would take to a faster or earlier decease. Does this mean unrecorded life to the fullest? Probably, but non with the same intension as is common in modern-day America. I think it is stating to populate without consideration of decease. But that & # 8217 ; s where it gets complicated. Roethke is non stating to populate recklessly, or over indulge, or to prosecute in gluttonous life style, he is stating to populate cautiously but non to allow decease devour your anxiousnesss. Death is a common and natural happening that is ineluctable so unrecorded without consideration of it. Dylan Thomas echoes these sentiments to a certain extent, although in a voice that does non portion the same passiveness as Roethke. You should ne’er allow yourself yield to decease harmonizing to Thomas & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; Do Not Travel Gentle into That Good Night. & # 8221 ; In this verse form he states & # 8220 ; Rage, fury against the death of the light. & # 8221 ; This acknowledges the being of a life & # 8217 ; s terminal but Tells us non to shrink or shrivel in its sometimes-frightening face. Wise work forces in his verse form & # 8220 ; cognize dark is right & # 8221 ; ( which I am trusting agencies that they know decease is right and decease will come ) but even they & # 8220 ; make non travel gentle into that good night. & # 8221 ; In this verse form Thomas realizes that decease is at hand but he still does non pacify it by giving the modus operandis of his life to seek and wholly avoid death. He is simply stating that merely because it happens, and will go on, does non intend that we have to sit back and watch it occur, like his male parent seemingly did. Roethke & # 8217 ; s and Thomas & # 8217 ; s positions, although different, were besides similar in some ways.

& # 8220 ; We are hapless go throughing facts & # 8221 ; harmonizing to Robert Lowell. This is one more manner in which decease is looked at. Although his verse form & # 8220 ; Epilogue & # 8221 ; is non thematically aimed towards decease, this one statement is cohesive with Marianne Moore & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; A Grave. & # 8221 ; People die mundane. Deaths are ignored mundane. In a sense we are all merely & # 8220 ; go throughing facts. & # 8221 ; Even if comparatively few people notice that we die, it will be recorded someplace and likely ready sometime once more in the hereafter. & # 8220 ; A Grave & # 8221 ; speaks honestly about how the sea is a grave that is frequently defiled without realisation. & # 8220 ; The fish no longer look into them for their castanetss have non lasted & # 8221 ; is an look of this. That topographic point is on the ocean floor where I died and that topographic point is besides where a shark swam this forenoon unmindful to my grave. This is sad, but non ever. My decease should non destroy person & # 8217 ; s or everybody else & # 8217 ; s life. Death consequences in some grieving but for the most portion, most of the population carries on with their mundane lives.

As dark of a subject as it is, decease is still interesting and can supply cryptic every bit good as prosecuting subjects in poesy. These verse forms and subjects were all related in at least a minor manner and supply of import positions on what decease is and how it is, can be, or should be reacted to.