How do the Poets Explore the Theme of Death in Educating for Leisure, Mother in a Refugee Camp, Do not go Gentle into that Good Night, Remember, T...

Tone is very important in poetry as it plays a role in the way the characters within the poem are portrayed, the way we perceive the writers intentions and it sets the mood when reading the poem. This can clearly be seen with “mother in a refugee camp” as the poem overall has a very hopeless and harsh tone and this can be seen when the narrator of the poem say, “She soon would have to forget” in the context that the death of the child is inevitable and they are hopeless as they cannot defy destiny. This is also harsh as the poet does not cover up death with euphemisms but is very straight forward saying that there is no other choice other than to forget. When it comes to describing the mother it becomes a very gentle and caring tone and this can be seen in the first two stanzas when Chinua Achebe says, “No Madonna and child could touch her tenderness for a child.” This biblical reference is implying that even the optimum and ideal depiction of motherhood does not even come close to how tender and loving this mother is. Finally when it comes to setting the scene and describing the surrounding its tone shows no mercy and is brutally honest. This can clearly be seen when the poet is describing the scent within the air saying’ “The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea.” With the poet there is no covering up what is really happening and this acts like an invitation to both the senses of the reader and to come and see what is truly happening in the refugee camp. Both “remember” and “do not go gentle” they have a similar commanding tone and this can be seen when Dylan Thomas says, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” and when Christina Rosetti says, “Remember me when I am gone away.” This commanding tone shows us how much these p...

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... Hardy due to the fact that all three talk about killing a person but the tone used in “The man he killed” is very different than the one used in the other two poems. The tone used in “The man he killed” is overall very reflective as the character is always thinking about what happened and he keeps trying to justify it. On top of that the double hyphen actually gives us the most evidence due to the fact that it shows us that the character and the reader need time to think about the topic. When Thomas Hardy talks about the opposition’s soldier who got killed the tone become more sympathetic and this can be seen when the poet says, “You shoot a fellow down… a crown.” The poet starts to feel sympathetic toward the man he shot due to the fact that if he had met this man in any other condition he would have treated him to a drink or help him out by lending him some money.