Who Is Rachel Hadas On The Other Hand?

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An Analysis of "On the Other Hand"

"On the Other Hand", what is on the other hand? Rachel Hadas tells about the living, the dead and shows the reader the other side of usual thoughts about the dead and living. She lists the faults of the living and the virtues of the dead, in order to explain her first statement, "it is no wonder why we love the dead". Yet, then turns everything around again in the last statement of this free verse poem. Rachel Hadas poem, "On the Other Hand" clearly depicts the many differences of the "brittle, easily wounded" living and the "patient, peaceful" dead.

In the first stanza of the poem, the dead are said to be admired in a way because of all the flaws that the living inhibit. The living are …show more content…

The reader is forced to see the other side of the usual thoughts of the living and dead. Hadas is in fact showing the reader the "other hand", or other side of the situation. She continues this approach in the first part of the third stanza; telling of the ability that the dead have to "glide across the hours" with time being no boundary to them. The dead have no haste, instead the live in "peaceful places, in unhurried silence". All this relates back to the first line of the poem, "no wonder why we love the dead", explaining her reasons for adoring the dead.

However, just as the reader has adjusted to this new view of things, he is shown the one negative side to being dead. The last statement of the desperate longings of the dead, presents the reader with another turning point in his views. The last lines portray the dead as "desperate presences hammering at the gates", illustrating the dead to be longing for something. The reader tries to distinguish what the "gates" are; possibly these gates are the gates to life. It would make sense that the dead are, in their free, careless, and un-timed existence, in fact longing of the happiness of being social and

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