Death And Suffering In Poetry

Introduction
In the essay I will explore the way poets teach the reader about death and suffering. Death is something that is often used in poetry as it something everyone can relate to, it is something that is inevitably going to happen to everyone. It is also something that everyone must experience at some time in their lives; the death of a loved one, of a family member or friend. This means that everyone is able to empathise on some level with the poetry and can understand what the writer feels so emotionally strongly about. Often suffering is related to those who are close to death as much as physical suffering. Many poets have contrasting views, meaning on the whole the approach towards death is balanced. For example in ‘death be not …show more content…
In ‘A Mother in a Refugee Camp’ rather than talking about struggle from the perspective of someone who as personally struggled when close to death. Achebe writes about a person who has to struggle against death on a daily basis ‘the rust-coloured hair left on his skull’ the use of ‘rust’ implies that the child is almost decaying, slowly breaking down. It is as if he is rotting like a dead person whilst he is alive. Again the use of ‘skull’ shows he is so close to death he only lives a half existence, this again adds to the idea of decay. ‘She held a ghost smile between her teeth’, here Achebe compares the mother’s smile to a ghost, something that is seen but doesn’t really exist, implying that although she smiles there is no real meaning behind it. She merely shows her teeth but feels no happiness, satisfaction or pleasure. In ‘Aubade’ the struggle against death is more of a personal one. Larkin is paranoid about death, even though he has no real reason to fear it; unlike the mother who Achebe writes about who values every day even though the threat of death is constant. Larkin’s paranoia is clear in the line ‘rented world begins to rouse‘. Here Larkin demonstrates he believes the world to be temporary, that everything is moving on, he cannot …show more content…
It angers him how swiftly people are taken by death ‘rage rage against the dying of the light’. The use of guttural alliteration shows Thomas is angry yet he has no hope as it says in ‘Aubade’ ‘courage is no good, it means not scaring others’. Therefore Thomas only encourages his father to fight against death. However he does so only in the futile sense of avoiding the reality and inevitably of death himself. The guttural alliteration makes it sound as though Thomas is choking back his tears, forcing himself to keep strong even though he is aware of the futility of the