The Death of Reasoning - Book Report/Review Example

The tone is not sorrowful, sad or repentant. The persona merely narrates it without emotion. As if a monotone of events just happened, there is no allusion to color or anything that would enrich any other feeling. Perhaps the closest is the use of sound as in "creak across my Soul," "Drum kept beating" and "bell_ began to toll." All these terms do not convey any feeling. But since this poem is a narration in the past, the author could not have meant to convey the feeling of fear or foreboding.

The use of metaphors like in the 1st stanza, "I felt a Funeral, in my brain" adds complexities to the understanding of the poem. Can there be a funeral in the brain This adds spice and reflection to the poem? Taking the 1st part of the line into consideration, the persona talks of a death in her brain that she felt, meaning that she was not a witness but a participant. What part died she could not as yet identify. Mourners in a funeral are people aware of who died and for what causes. In the poem, these symbolize the necessary information for the persona to identify what it is in her that died.

These mourners just "kept treading_ treading," or information that is there but cannot be identified. It is about to be known to the "Sense" or to the consciousness of the persona when suddenly they stop moving. The next movement is the sound of drums. The use of Simili in that the service was likened to a Drum that tells of a message that had been told and retold to the point that the mind no longer responds. In this stupor is an awakening sound of the box which "creaked across my Soul." The use of form, in the capitalization of letters, gives greater significance to the words and thus additional meaning to the poem.

The capitalization of letters in the 3rd stanza shows that Heaven is calling. The church bells ring when it calls the people to service. The usage in the poem of heaven as God's place is clear in the capitalized word "Being" referring to God found in the next line. God is but an "ear" meaning that "He is listening for the personas' call." The persona refuses to call and is alone. The persistent theme of waiting, pauses and passivity are evident in the poem with the use of dashes, "wrecked, solitary, here ___.

" Then suddenly the "Plank of Reason, Broke." The persona is awakened. Rational thinking has been cast aside to accept the concepts of God, Man, and Soul. With this renewed awakening, the persona realizes that she plunges downwards and knows what is to happen next. This "dropping down" and "hit a world at every plunge" conveys that the persona because of her failure to understand brought about by constant rationalizing and reasoning suddenly identifies what has died in the end, "And Finished knowing then_.

" This is not the physical death but the death of rational thinking as the mind passes into renewal upon acceptance of the concepts of God, Man and the Soul.