PRJ 1.3: For Whom the Bell Tolls
In John Crowe Ransom’s poem, “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter,” the author uses the unexpected death of a child to show how people react when confronting mortality and the fragility of life. Ransom utilizes shifts in tone from stanza to stanza, lively metaphors and irony to illustrate these.
In the first stanza, the tone is light and happy. Because he refers to her as “John Whiteside’s Daughter,” the speaker doesn’t seem to know the child personally. He speaks of the “speed in her little body” (1) and the “lightness of her footfall,” (2) and how her “brown study” (3) perplexes the adults. This shows the shock of the child’s death – after all, we do not expect adults to outlive children. It is not they way things are supposed to happen. Childhood is supposed to be speed and lightness. …show more content…
She “took arms against her shadow” (7), which the author uses as a metaphor for the girl’s zest for life, battling back the shadows of death in what to her was a game. He also uses the images of white geese “dripping their snow on the green grass” (10) as metaphor for childhood. The “snow cloud” (9) white is a symbol of innocence, while the green grass symbolizes life. The geese’s falling feathers can also symbolize death, and when chasing the lazy geese, the girl shows that she does not fear death and like most children, probably doesn’t even think about it. He also speaks of the “tireless heart within the little lady,” (13) an ironic contrast to her “brown study.” The active, playful child is now still and cold. The author’s use of the words “little lady” rather than her name also suggest that he did not know her
In John Crowe Ransom’s poem, “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter,” the author uses the unexpected death of a child to show how people react when confronting mortality and the fragility of life. Ransom utilizes shifts in tone from stanza to stanza, lively metaphors and irony to illustrate these.
In the first stanza, the tone is light and happy. Because he refers to her as “John Whiteside’s Daughter,” the speaker doesn’t seem to know the child personally. He speaks of the “speed in her little body” (1) and the “lightness of her footfall,” (2) and how her “brown study” (3) perplexes the adults. This shows the shock of the child’s death – after all, we do not expect adults to outlive children. It is not they way things are supposed to happen. Childhood is supposed to be speed and lightness. …show more content…
She “took arms against her shadow” (7), which the author uses as a metaphor for the girl’s zest for life, battling back the shadows of death in what to her was a game. He also uses the images of white geese “dripping their snow on the green grass” (10) as metaphor for childhood. The “snow cloud” (9) white is a symbol of innocence, while the green grass symbolizes life. The geese’s falling feathers can also symbolize death, and when chasing the lazy geese, the girl shows that she does not fear death and like most children, probably doesn’t even think about it. He also speaks of the “tireless heart within the little lady,” (13) an ironic contrast to her “brown study.” The active, playful child is now still and cold. The author’s use of the words “little lady” rather than her name also suggest that he did not know her