The Dream Poem by Aracelis Girmay - Essay Example

The Dream is a poem which is based on grief and sorrow and it evokes those emotions that one would normally feel wheneverdeath occurs in their lives. It is a fact that death happens all around us and that it has come to affect all individuals in the world in one way or the other. While this may be the case, however, it is how individuals deal with sorrow that determines whether they get over it swiftly or not. The gap which is left in the lives of the individuals who are left behind can be considered to be the basis of the poem, where there is uncertainty concerning how life is going to go on without the people that they have lost. The poem also displays the importance of a mother in one’s life and how the loss of such an important figure can lead to a lot of grief and sorrow. Aracelis Girmay writes the poem The Dream to express her feelings about death and the contradictions that exist within it. It is a poem which shows the irony of living as a human being, some being happy with their lot in life while others remain sad due to their the tragic events, such as death, that happen in their lives. Girmay uses this poem to display the true nature of human life, that nothing is ever permanent and death is ever present to take away the people that we value the most, and leaving behind individuals who are full of grief, sorrow, and mourning. The use of imagery is very extensive in this poem especially when making contrasts between the beauty of life and the abruptness through which it comes to an end. Girmay states that “below the window, my mother/young, playing with me/at a rock, in some sunlight/falling over us”. This statement can be employed to show what the persona in the poem thought of their mother. That the mother was alive, she was a jovial person who played with her children and was happy with them. However, it seems that death came abruptly since the tone from the poem is one of sadness. The image of night or darkness is used to refer to death as well as the feelings of grief and sorrow that are experienced by the children who are bereaved after the loss of their mother. It can be said that the image of darkness, when contrasted to the beauty of the world before the mother’s death may be Girmay’s way of stating that the world is beautiful just the way it is but it is death which makes it not to be a pleasant place to live in due to its corrupting influence over it. This image may also be used to show the price which individuals have to pay when they lose their loved ones to death because nothing ever returns to the way it was before the death occurred. The image of the narrator howling like a coyote may be used to refer to the helplessness that she ends up feeling due to the fact that although she has no hand in the death of her mother, she and her family are the first ones to suffer when the death occurs. The image of happiness is continuously displayed in this poem but there is a sudden stop to it when Girmay mentions that it all ends in death “needed the first mother to die/before she could use her name/& feed her children”. Symbolism is a major style used in the progress of the subject matter of this poem. A good example of this, as mentioned above, is the mentioning of the howl of a coyote to symbolize extreme grief and sorrow that the narrator feels when her mother dies. In the poem, “An old & famous woman” can be used to symbolize the voice of sanity in an otherwise confused situation where the narrator and her brother do not know why they are experiencing the loss of their mother as well as the grief that follows it. The fact that the narrator’s brother states that “…it was our mother/who wrote…” the dream is a symbol of the abandonment that the two siblings feel after the death of their mother. The symbol of abandonment is a means of expressing the grief which is felt by the children who are left behind by their mother, and it seems that they do not know how to move on from their grief. Girmay uses figurative language to depict the contrasting characteristics of life and death, and a good example of this is in the line “she was not born then, yet/& needed the first mother to die” which is an oxymoron used to symbolize death and reincarnation. It is well known that death is a sad event but Girmay’s depicting it the way she does clearly shows the contrast in the world as a place where a lot of happiness can be found as well as great sadness. Figurative language can be seen all over the poem and it is used to express the theme of death, which can be considered to be the most important in the poem. The tone of the poem can be considered both impartial and cheerless, this is because of the contrast which Girmay makes between two very different matters. For example, the dream that she narrates deals with issues concerning both life and death and the means through which the siblings attempt to gain and understanding of it so that they can get over their grief. The sadness in the poem is seen where the narrator is at once moaning and celebrating the life of her mother, holding out the hope that she may be alive; that her death was only a dream, as seen in the line “She did not die, he thought”. It can further be said that the tone of the poem depicts the true feelings of its writer about the death of her mother and how the situation that occurs after her death affects the different people living in it. The sad tone in the poem helps to deliver the poet’s message to the reader as well as fostering an understanding of the subject matter involved. In conclusion, the use of imagery, symbolism and figurative language in this poem greatly contributes to a greater understanding of the poem. They create situations which are familiar to the reader and they allow him to decipher the true meaning of what the poem is saying. Despite what many people who read it may think, it is not as negative a poem as it is considered to be. Instead, it has many lessons to give about the reality of human life in the world and the main message which can be made out of it is that there is no guarantee of immortality in the world and that we should live in it as best as we can. Death and the sorrow and grief which come with it are realities of the world and it is essential for all of those individuals who are affected by it to ensure that they continue to move on with their lives as best as they can. The attempt by the narrator and her siblings to understand the reason for their mother’s death can be said to be the main point of the poem, showing the need of human beings to understand death and answer the question of whether there is life after death. Work Cited Girmay, Aracelis. The Dream. Print Read More