Metaphysical Themes Of Love And Death By Judith Wright

Register to read the introduction… These two indispensable aspects of human existence are juxtaposed against each other, with each of the aspects, love and death, represented in the first and second stanza respectively. In simply eight lines, Wright is able to successfully present love as a universal, all encompassing and necessary force through the diction of the poem, shown through the lines ?We meet and part now over all the world?, ?We, who sought many things, throw all away / for his one thing? and ?remembering that in the narrow grave / we shall be lonely?. However, as swiftly as Wright introduces love in the first stanza, she takes it back in the second. In the final eight lines Wright is able to reflect upon how fast love can be conquered by death and the loneliness that results. Consequently this causes a hasty and abrupt change in tone, from one which is passionate to one which reveals the harsh veracity of reality, and the mortality of love. This change brings shock to the reader, who previously had been positioned to feel engrossed in the passion and embracing of love, which assists in the absolute communication that death is final and lonely.

This laconic representation conveys the immense sadness for what is to come in reality, that life can be compressed so that all one can feel in the end is death. However, the poem may serve as a warning on how frantically and desperately lovers need to hang on to their counterpart and their memories. This is indicated through the language of the poem and the repeated use of the word ?we? throughout the first stanza, as it implies that the experience of love and separation is common to …show more content…
Wright felt great empathy for those who went to war and for those who were left behind, so it is fitting that she has incorporated symbols and imagery which reflect wartime. The title contains a symbol within itself, as a ?company? could refer to the companionship of lovers or to the military use of the word which describes a group of soldiers. A succinct conclusion that death is lonely and despondent is aided by the use of ?the narrow grave? to conjure images of the battlefields and the trenches at which the soldiers die alone, without there lovers. In the second stanza, the imagery of the ?drums? is used to efficiently convey a range and process of emotions in a concise manner, as they imply that the internal throbbing and agonizing pain, which after a time of containment of feeling and denying ones true emotions, resurfaces when one once again wishes for what they