Perceptions in Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach

Perceptions in Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold’s “Dover beach” describe the way in which perceptions are mislead society. The use of metaphors, symbolisms, allusiveness, technical quantities, and imagery assist the speaker’s thought regards between what is seen and what is real. Dover beach was written during Victorian era. Which brought civilization based on industry, value and money. This is the time which people start questioning the existence of God. The speaker observed the plight of Victorian era. And he sought an answer to the problems which he and world faced with. Arnold express the dejection of lost civilization, anticipate its future, and try to acquire its solution

The speaker begins straightway with visual and auditory imagery when describing “ the sea is calm”. This image implies that there is a life out there but it is smothered by darkness. And the cliff is sparkling in the moonlight. The speaker invite his companion to “come to the window” (line6) to see the night air. He says this as the unending wave come in and go out back out again. His emotion bring feeling of sorrow. The speaker says even Sophocles a great Greek philosopher of the past heard his eternal sadness. The sea is coming in and going out. He thought of its like the struggles with life constant demand. The uses of metaphor when he call the faith of all people “ the faith of the sea”(21). He says the world used to be full of faith. But now the speaker no longer believes that the world is in full of faith. He hear the wave but he only feels sorrow. So he need his loves’ for reassurance that everything will be all right, that he can trust her completely. However the tone underneath prevent hem to believed that. The poet is comparing the world in which we live to the perfect life we want to have. Finally the speaker says with out peace, love, and joy the world contain no goodness and uncertainty. Since we have no faith in God, we must have each other with war and darkness approaching. The theme that you must have faith in someone if not in God to help deal with the difficulties our world can create.

In “Dover Beach”, Arnold uses an exquisitely calm ocean filled with tension to present a position of appearance verses reality. “Dover Beach” is about a beautifully calm sea, although when looking underneath the surface, it is a world full of hidden turbu...

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...man did not, as the churches claimed, have a privileged place if earthly creation, as the image of God, but was merely part of an age-old biological process of the survival of the fittest. Rather than being a little lower than the angels, man was somewhat more developed than the ape. The theory was devastating and destroyed the Christian vocations of many. Perhaps the best way for the modern reader to gain some sense of the impact of this experience is to go to the poetry that grew out of the loss of religious belief

Arnold’s plead is also his solution to a world of confusion and chaos. he believes, or optimistically wishes he could believe, that he can take refuge in an internal peace between him and his lover. By saying this, Arnold must believe there is no hope for civilization, and no solution to its problems. On a darkened plain the people cannot truly see what is going on, which draws back to Arnold’s idea that people of the Victorian Age acted without reflection. The darkness is caused by a chaotic world where truth is blind to those who look on it, and the people who look upon the world do not reflect on what they see. Thus, the darkness is attributed to confusion