Comparison Of Poems On Death English Literature Essay

The effect of death on different people can vary greatly. Some may choose to obtain pleasure from the nostalgic memories or a lost loved one, some may see death as a reminder to love more, and some may even choose to avoid facing the harsh truth that death presents.

Alice Walker, in “Poem at Thirty-Nine”, tried to explore the warmth of a parental relationship. Judy Brunette, in “Dad”, attempted to discover the same. “A Mother in a Refugee Camp” by Chinua Achebe showed how powerful a mother’s love is in the face of death, which is similar to “Funeral Blues” by W. H. Auden. Christina Rossetti tried to use her poem “Remember” to show how we could alleviate the reality of her death to her relatives and friends. The theme of “Don’t fear death” by Aleksandr Blok is similar.

All these poets have taken different perspectives on death, however, from all these poems, the poets all aware that death is unavoidable.

We all know that we cannot evade death – the death of ourselves and our relatives, friends and so forth. Unless there are any special circumstances, we, as human, usually feel depressed after the death of someone. The actual level of dejection would depend on a number of factors, including how long you know that person, your relationship with him and so forth. However, without any hesitation, the relationship between a mother and a son ought to be the most intimate one.

In “A Mother in a Refugee Camp” by Chinua Achebe, the mother in the poem took care of her son. The son was not yet died in the poem, but in a refugee camp, the child was starving. The scenery described by Chinua Achebe was awful, with “odors of diarrhea”. The tone used in the poem was filled with sadness and depression. In order to underline the love of the mother in that terrible camp, Chinua Achebe used different senses and simile to describe. For example, he used “rust-colored” to describe the hair of the child, which is apparently abnormal. Furthermore, the smile of a mother towards her son or daughter should be sweet. However, ironically, Chinua Achebe used, ironically, “a ghost-smile” to describe the “smile” of the “Mother”. In the poem, Chinua Achebe also contrasted the mother in the poem with other mothers in the camp, which states that “The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea, of unwashed children with washed-out ribs and dried-up bottoms waddling in laboured steps behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there had long ceased to care, but not this one.” It shows that other mothers have already given up their children after their birth. The poem did not actually state the details, but as one could reasonably imagine, the resources in the refugee camp would be limited. In order to maintain life, most mothers would choose to maintain their own life, rather than that of their children. But even in such an extreme horrible place, the mother described in the poem was different. Hence, it became the subject of Chinua Achebe’s poem. Even though I am not yet a father, I could still, from the words used in the poem, feel how much love the mother in the refugee camp had towards her son, and how much love she has given to her son.

Upon conducting research on the background of Chinua Achebe, the poem was written when Chinua Achebe accepted a request to serve as foreign ambassador in Africa. During his life, Chinua Achebe has travelled to many cities.

In the poem, Chinua Achebe did not state what his main purpose of writing this poem was. It might on one hand be perceived that parental love was the main theme. However, based on the background of Chinua Achebe, the poem could also be viewed as showing Chinua Achebe’s dissatisfaction towards the living standard of the people in Africa.

The sorrow of the death of a close family member was also the theme of “Funeral Blues” by W. H. Auden. Similar to Chinua Achebe, in “Funeral Blues”, W. H. Auden appears to have a negative view towards death. In “Funeral Blues”, W. H. Auden did not describe precisely as to who was died. Research has been done on the background of W. H. Auden, and it was discovered the poem was actually referred to the death of W. H. Auden’s father. The tone used in the poem is also rather pessimistic. The poem could actually be segregated into four sections. In the first section, W. H. Auden used different descriptions to highlight the sadness of the death. For instance, he used “a juicy bone” and a “muffled drum” to describe the enjoyments one could have before death. But after death, all enjoyments and communications were stopped. In the next section, he started to show that nothing would be important after the death of that person. In the third section, he showed how important that person to him. From the poem, we could actually feel that person would actually mean everything to W. H. Auden. In the last section, it showed how despair W. H. Auden was after the death of that person. The theme and purpose of W. H. Auden in the poem was clear – to show how important the dead person was meant to him, and after his death, he lost his own direction.

A number of language devices have been used by W. H. Auden in the poem, such as repetition of “North, South, East and West”, and the poem as a whole contained more rhyme. As a matter of exaggeration, W. H. Auden described his father was so important that he could occupy the poet’s “working week” and also “Sunday rest”. To me, the trump line of the poem was “I thought that love would last forever: but I was wrong.” This sentence was indeed touching to show the torture one must go through for the death of an imperative person in one’s life.

After reading “Funeral Blues”, it immediately caused me to think of my grandfather’s funeral when I was about 10 years old. I could still remember every scene in the funeral and how sad I was at that time. I could truly understand how W. H. Auden felt when he faced the death of his father.

Not every poet was so pessimistic on death. An example is Christina Rossetti. Christina Rossetti is an English poet and is an Anglo-Catholic. Probably because of the influence of her religion and her life experience, in “Remember”, Christina Rossetti showed her personal views on how we should face death – from sadness, to forget and smile. Christina Rossetti made use of a number of contrast in the poem to show the difference between the time immediately after the death of someone, at which it was filled with remembrances and sadness, and some time after the death, at which forgetting and smile have started to replace the miseries of death. The use of “silent land” showed the imagination of Christina Rossetti that the place that we go after our death is not necessarily a place of horror. Christina Rossetti also used “darkness” and “corruption” as metaphors to describe the present time of death, which highlighted her views that the time instantaneously after her death would not be as depressing as the reader would think. The word “remember” has been used repeatedly for five times throughout the poem. Remember the dead person, however, was not the aim of Christina Rossetti. The intentional and repeated use of “remember” could be perceived to contrast the main theme of the poem – “forget”.

The positive way of treating death is also supported by “Don’t fear death” by Aleksandr Blok. Aleksandr Blok was born in an intellectual and educated family. “Don’t fear death”, as compared to “Funeral Blues”, were simpler and straightforward. Aleksandr Blok used commanding sentences at the beginning “Don’t fear death in earthly travels. Don’t fear enemies or friends.” to attract the readers’ attention. The words described in the world after death in the poem were positive. Aleksandr Blok, for instance, used “a dawn’s favour” to describe the life after death, as contrasted with “nights of poverty and strife” as some people might think the life after death would be. In the eyes of Aleksandr Blok, the world after death is one with “a common law, one will of the Eternal Reign”. It appears that such world is disciplined and beautiful, but at the same time, Aleksandr Blok provided spaces for the readers to imagine how the world would be. Compared with other poems regarding death in this review, we could actually feel the difference of Aleksandr Blok on the issue of death. The sentence “Don’t fear enemies or friends” showed that death should not be afraid by any one. It could be distinguished by other poets’ views. In terms of language devices, a number of devices have been used. For instance, assonance has been used in the poem to add more sound effects to the poem, such as “a slave of life” and “poverty and strife”, “the Eternal Reign” and “everlasting deadly pain”.

Some poets, like Alice Walker and Judy Burnette, have neutral views towards death. In “Poem at Thirty-Nine”, Alice Walker used her own personal experience to describe how her life was after the death of her father. At the age of thirty-nine, Alice Walker started to realize that she was actually having the same living style as her father’s. Even though she has already had her own life, she, as repeated in the poem, missed her father a lot. By researching the background of Alice Walker, it was discovered that Alice Walker was grown up in a loving household. Compared to her father, Alice Walker actually had a closer relationship with her mother. However, as shown in the poem, after some time of the death of her father, she started to realize that her father in fact had an influential role in her life. In the poem, Alice Walker used explicit way to show her feeling in the poem by telling the readers directly “How I miss my father”. These direct but lovely had been repeated twice in the poem. A number of language devices and effects could be identified in the poem, such as alliteration and rhyme.

“Dad” by Judy Burnette has similarly described the feelings of a daughter towards her father. “Dad” was the poem written by Judy Burnette addressing her father. As noted by Judy Burnette, the poem was written to show how she missed her father after his death. The father of Judy Burnette died suddenly with a heart attack when she was 22. Throughout the poem, Judy Burnette, similar to Alice Walker in “Poem at Thirty Nine”, used a direct way to express her feeling and memory towards her father. “Years may come and go but your memory will never be erased.” This, although contrary to Christina Rossetti’s “Remember”, has expressly showed how important her father was when Judy Burnette wrote the poem. In the poem, Judy Burnette said “When my life was consumed in you // in your love, and in your smile.” The life appears to be happy and without worries. It could be contrasted with the time after his after, in which Judy Burnette felt distressed for having no one to turn to for difficulties happened in her life. Sound effects have also been used in the poem, such as “whenever I speak your name” and “things have never been the same”. Judy Burnette deliberately used the personalized word “consumed” to describe her life before the death of her father.

We all have to face death. But how we view and feel about death could be so different.

After reading these poems, it triggered me to think about death. I have struggled to think what the life would be after death – whether it’s like a heaven as described in “Don’t fear death”, or it would be like a hell? That was something we could imagine. But it appeared that poets with the belief of Christianity or Catholic appear to have more positive views for the places we go after death. I believe it is probably because of the bible, which mentioned that we could live with God as long as we believe.

May be because I am still young, I am neutral towards religion and I believe in science and genetics. At the present moment when I am still alive, I concur with the views of Aleksandr Blok and Christina Rossetti that we should enjoy what our present life is. Even though if our friends or relatives are died, we should still continue our life happily. Moreover, from “Dad” and “Poem at Thirty-Nine”, I have learnt that treasuring what we have is even more important. In order to avoid any regret to myself after the death of my parents, I should live happily and to reward my parents as much as I can before one day I would not have this opportunity.