Literary Analysis Of Wordsworth's 'We Are Seven'

Of all the mysteries and questions ever pondered or researched; of discoveries made or answers jubilantly uprooted, death remains the one great conundrum over which mankind’s obsession never ceases. While some look to religion to find peace in the inevitability of life’s end, others cling to science, ever searching for a way to elongate and even immortalize their physical existence. Still, others, perhaps finding peace in both realms, seek a different type of immortality; an immortality realized through the works and accomplishments they leave behind. Wordsworth’s Romantic piece, “We are Seven,” is one of many such works, not only left behind by the illustrious poet, but in which he addresses this very topic. In it, an adult speaker engages …show more content…
Despite the poem’s speaker being an adult, and despite the importance of the contrast between the thoughts of the child and his own, this structure heavily lends itself to the speech pattern of a juvenile. This becomes especially true as the narrator finds himself more and more frustrated with the child’s insistence of “we are seven” (69). As the conversation reaches its greatest point of tension, the narrator suddenly ceases to speak gently of the girl’s deceased siblings, declaring, “But they are dead; these two are dead!” (65). In this moment, not only does the speaker appear to have lost control of himself, but he further loses control over the exchange, as the child utters its last line of, “Nay, we are seven!” (69). While the opposing voices of the poem’s characters remain distinct throughout the entirety of their interaction, it is the adult, rather than the child, who ends in a lesser state by the …show more content…
As she attempts to explain her reasoning, the girl reveals, “So in the churchyard she was laid, / And…Together round her grave we played, / My brother John and I” (53-56). She follows this statement with the news of that very brother’s passing in stating, “My brother John was forced to go, / And he lies by her side” (59-60). Here, the girl expresses an awareness of the absence of her siblings, and even in the seeming unnaturalness of death. In this, for the first time in her narrative, she reveals a sort of sorrow in the idea that John did not simply and peacefully pass away. Instead, she posits that he was “forced” to abandon life and, in doing so, leave his family behind. This in mind, a different view might be taken at the activities in which the girl engages, still centering around the deceased’s bodies. Perhaps, rather than the narrator’s apparent belief in the child’s inability to accept and cope with death, her understanding surpasses those sorrowful respects adults are trained to pay to the