The Writing Of Holy Sonnet 10

John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 10” is very touching sonnet. Donne’s writes in his sonnet that death is not “Mighty and dreadful” (2) that we all believe. Donne in his sonnet “Holy Sonnet 10” shows aggression towards death that death is not powerful at all as we all believe. He thinks that death is just another way to get free from the life. John Donne believes that death is not capable of killing people. He thinks people always do not die when we all think they will. Even we survive whenever you don’t think we will. John Donne was mucking with death by calling death as a slave of fate. There are so many metaphors in the sonnet to show the importance of the poem’s theme and his comparison of death to sleep.

John Donne in his sonnet “Holy Sonnet 10” uses wonderful words to make the special feelings to the readers. Also these words are very important for the theme of the poem. Whenever we hear the words “mighty and dreadful” it makes us frightened. When Donne writes “mighty and Dreadful” it makes people scared of death. The word “mighty” shows the power of death over all living things and “dreadful” is like talking to the people are about to die and they are scared of it. However, he was sarcastic when he wrote “poor death” (2). When Donne writes in his sonnet “from rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be” (5) he meant death is not always painful as we all think. In this line Donne compares the death with a sleep. He says we all wake up from the sleep after a while and we can see death as a same way just like sleeping and taking rest. John Donne writes “Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow” (6). He thinks there are nothing to be scared of. Death is just a way to escape from the painful life. Even he calls death as a “slave” (9). We can use this word as a metaphor to show how weak death is. We all know slave means must follow the orders or commands from another person. Therefore death is not all powerful by himself. Death is not strong as we all think.

John Donne uses lot of metaphors in his sonnet “Holy Sonnet 10”. Especially he compares death with sleep. He writes, “From rest and sleep, which but they pictured be/ Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow” (5-6). In these two lines Donne compared death with sleep. This metaphor explains that, we all know sleep is a pleasurable, we all take rest while we are sleeping, we do not know what is going on around us. Also he thinks death must be more pleasurable. Since Donne thinks Death is just another way to sleep, perhaps a sleep from we do not wake up. From same line we can use the word “picture” (5). Here he is saying that just see yourselves that you are just sleeping, death is not that scary that we all think. This metaphor is very effective because it shows us the real face of death and makes it very clear to us.

Donne charges the death when he writes “thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men” (9). He compared the death with dependent and independent. He thinks death is not independent by itself at all. He is dependent on fate. John Donne thinks death does not control itself but man or woman does. Also john Donne writes “And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,/ And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well’ (10-11). In this metaphor john shows that death uses very dangerous methods such as poison, war or sickness to reach its goal. Here he compares the death with sleep. While drugs or charms can put us on relax able sleep. When Donne writes, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And death shall be no more; death thou shalt die” (13-14). In these two lines Donne compares death with sleep again. He thinks we all wake up in our afterlife. Where will be no more death. We all die once and wake up. His voice was very angry and saying death will be no more once we wake up and death will die.

Donne writes, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally” (13). The main theme of this poem is that we really do not die as we all think. Death is just like a sleep. We wake up afterwards and live forever and it is end of death.

Death is always been scary thing in our lives. Most of the people thinks death will end their lives that’s what makes death is a powerful tool to control their lives. However Donne doesn’t think death will end people lives, we don’t need to be scared of it. Donne think death is just a “short sleep” (13). At the end Donne says “Death, thou shalt die” (14) it shows the anger how he stands against the death.