Death, men say, is like a sea
\nThat engulfs mortality,
\nTreacherous, dreadful, blindingly
\n—-Full of storm and terror.<\/p>\n
Death is like the deep, warm sand
\nPleasant when we come to land,
\nCovering up with tender hand
\n—-The wave\u2019s drifted error.<\/p>\n
Life\u2019s a tortured, booming gurge
\nWinds of passion strike and urge,
\nAnd transmute to broken surge
\n—-Foam-crests of ambition.<\/p>\n
Death\u2019s a couch of golden ground,
\nWarm, soft, permeable mound,
\nWhere from even memory\u2019s sound
\n—-We shall have remission.<\/p>\n
In the poem \u201cDeath, men say, is like a sea,\u201d Michael Field contests the conventional notion of death as the dangerous and dreadful entity to humanity. Grounding life and death alternately in the symbiotic imagery of the sea and its shore, of a body of water and the sand, Field argues that the force of life is more congruous with the conventional notion of death than we think, that death and life converge and reconcile, and that death is, in fact, a safe and final haven. Subsequently, the poem contends, as the writer Hanya Yanagihara would put it, that life is only bearable because it is going to end soon.<\/p>\n
There are four stanzas in the poem: three concerning death and one life. Let\u2019s set it up like this: death 1 + death 2 + life 1 + death 2.1 respectively. As the numbers suggest, the kinds of death and life vary, overlap, and evolve.<\/p>\n
The first stanza offers the common perception of death, comparing it to the sea, a body of water that is limitless and highly drownable; it is well capable of extinguishing mortality, most notably that of humans. Men depict and conceive death as something negative and defeatist, something to be dreaded like \u201cstorm\u201d and \u201cterror.\u201d Death is then described with two adjectives, \u201ctreacherous\u201d and \u201cdreadful,\u201d but also with an adverb, \u201cblindingly;\u201d juxtaposing different parts of speech to describe death, Field signifies the inconsistency in the nature of death (death 1) established by men. The rhyme in the first three lines of the first stanza also distinguishes itself from the other stanzas: for we have \u201csea,\u201d \u201cmortality,\u201d and \u201cblindingly\u201d appearing less visually coherent from the other perfect rhymes: Stanza 2: \u201csand,\u201d \u201cland,\u201d and \u201chand\u201d | Stanza 3: \u201cgurge,\u201d \u201curge,\u201d \u201csurge\u201d | Stanza 4: \u201cground,\u201d \u201cmound,\u201d \u201csound.\u201d Already, Field sets the typical perception of death apart from the rest of the poem; death is in fact not<\/em> what \u201cmen say\u201d it is.<\/p>\n The second stanza then offers another perception of death (death 2). In lieu of a dangerous body of water, now, death is the shore, the \u201cdeep, warm sand.\u201d Death has metamorphorized from the indeterminate and volatile form of water into the solid and secure form of sand. It is no longer dreadful but something to look forward to: a safe and final shore, that is again a “deep, warm,” and “tender” entity, which will cover the wave\u2019s \u201cdrifted error\u201d; Field draws attention again to the erroneous nature of death 1 grounded in the image of water, which is then reconciled by death 2, since the shore of sand and the sea of water are not antithetical from each other; they constantly converge and integrate into each other (sand absorbs seawater; waves erode and carry sand into the sea).<\/p>\n In the third stanza, finally, \u201clife\u201d appears among its death companions. Life, as depicted here, however, is not distinct from death but in fact quite congruous with how death is perceived in stanza one. Life is \u201ctortur[ous]\u201d with the violence of windy passion; life is \u201ca booming gurge,\u201d a whirlpool of turbulent water in constant collision with the winds. The top of the waves are the \u201cfoam-crests,\u201d a high point of water where human \u201cpassion\u201d and \u201cambition\u201d meet and fall, and \u201ctransmute\u201d into into \u201cbroken surge,\u201d into erroneous waves; life 1 becomes on par with death 1. Field puts forth that how men often perceive death (“treacherous” and “dreadful”) is in fact how life itself is. And since death 2 reconciles with death 1, it also reconciles with life 1 as sea and shore, water and sand converge. Life and death are closer than ever.<\/p>\n If in the first two stanzas the perception of death is mediated by simile: \u201cdeath… is like\u201d; in the latter two, the entities of life and death assume a more direct nature of being, contracted and assertive: \u201cLife\u2019s<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cDeath\u2019s<\/strong>\u201d (bold mine). In the last stanza, death has fully evolved and become a true comfort and a safe haven (death 2.1): \u201ca couch of golden ground,\u201d materially and majestically hued. Death is the ultimate place where you are offered respite from \u201cmemory\u2019s sound,\u201d from your burdensome weight of living, from the \u201ctorture\u201d and the violence of \u201cpassion\u201d and \u201cambition,\u201d from mortality. You have found \u201cremission,\u201d the release from obligation and pain, the forgiveness of sins. Humanity can find refuge in this place that is death; the world stops calling to you–finally–just as the last line of every stanza retreats from the rest, just as you can in death.<\/p>\n Work Consulted: https:\/\/www.interviewmagazine.com\/culture\/hanya-yanagihara-x-adam-leith-gollner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Death, men say, is like a sea That engulfs mortality, Treacherous, dreadful, blindingly —-Full of storm and terror. Death is like the deep, warm sand Pleasant when we come to land, Covering up with tender hand —-The wave\u2019s drifted error. Life\u2019s a tortured, booming gurge Winds of passion strike and urge, And transmute to broken … Continue reading Life is only bearable because it is going to end soon.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3852,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145909],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3852"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}