Many Victorian poets wrote pieces that discussed various notions of being an individual and how for some, the boundaries of “the self” could be disturbed or challenged by extreme situations. One example of a poet who did these types of writings was British poet and critic Mathew Arnold. In Arnold’s poem, Growing Old, he uses himself to portray the dreadful experience of aging mentally, physically, and emotionally. He generally uses rhetorical questioning, imagery, tone, and personification throughout the poem to illustrate how he is suffering tremendously. Arnold pessimistically dwells on the physical pain accompanying the aging process and the inevitability of approaching his cruel death. This poem expresses how Arnold’s life is being limited
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Through this questioning he illustrates these changes in which the body becomes weak and bends down and the eyes lose their luster and sight. He continues to ask another question, “Is it for beauty to forgo her wreath?”(Arnold 2). In this question Arnold is resuming his example of the queen taking off her crown. The same thing happens with people, old age removes their glory and beauty. In the last line of the first stanza, he answers these questions saying “Yes, but not for this alone”(Arnold 5). He is implying that these things are with the coming of old age, but there are many other effects as …show more content…
He goes on to say that it “is to spend long days.. And not once feel that we were ever young”(Arnold 21-22). Being old for him is to be “immured in the hot prison of the present, month to month with weary pain”(Arnold 23-25). He feels as if his young soul is imprisoned in his old body unwillingly, and every month moves with tiring pain. He continues to elaborate his beliefs in the next stanza saying that “It is to suffer this,… And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel” (Arnold 27). Arnold feels as if there has been an absence of emotion, “no emotion—none” (Arnold 30) because his weak body now prevents his young heart from experiencing joy. All that “festers is the dull remembrance of change” (Arnold 29) as he grows old and the pain that comes with the memories of his youth. This shows how Arnold depended on his youth to define his happiness and
Through this questioning he illustrates these changes in which the body becomes weak and bends down and the eyes lose their luster and sight. He continues to ask another question, “Is it for beauty to forgo her wreath?”(Arnold 2). In this question Arnold is resuming his example of the queen taking off her crown. The same thing happens with people, old age removes their glory and beauty. In the last line of the first stanza, he answers these questions saying “Yes, but not for this alone”(Arnold 5). He is implying that these things are with the coming of old age, but there are many other effects as …show more content…
He goes on to say that it “is to spend long days.. And not once feel that we were ever young”(Arnold 21-22). Being old for him is to be “immured in the hot prison of the present, month to month with weary pain”(Arnold 23-25). He feels as if his young soul is imprisoned in his old body unwillingly, and every month moves with tiring pain. He continues to elaborate his beliefs in the next stanza saying that “It is to suffer this,… And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel” (Arnold 27). Arnold feels as if there has been an absence of emotion, “no emotion—none” (Arnold 30) because his weak body now prevents his young heart from experiencing joy. All that “festers is the dull remembrance of change” (Arnold 29) as he grows old and the pain that comes with the memories of his youth. This shows how Arnold depended on his youth to define his happiness and