Close Reading or Literary Analysis - Essay Example

As an apostrophe, Donne is addressing an anthropomorphized Death and informs the character that it is not as powerful as some people make it out to be. The poem “demonstrates the impotence and the self-destructiveness of the antagonist” (Tromly 391). Donne begins the poem by directly addressing death, “Death be not proud,” and then admitting that some people might hold death in a revered place: “though some have called thee/ Mighty and dreadful” (1-2). Obviously, it is rather banal to have to point out the fact that the single event that all people that are alive cannot deter is that they will all die.

There are no exceptions to this, and this is one of the few truisms that goes without anybody being able to form an argument against it. Considering this, the position that death is a powerful figure that is deserving of fear and respect seems like a difficult position to try to argue against. Of course, this would not have been a memorable or interesting poem if it had merely stated this obvious fact. The paradox that Donne creates is what makes this poem so well known. After informing death that it had nothing to be proud of, Donne then informs the character why this is the case: “For those, whom thou thinks’t, thou dost overthrow,/ Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me” (3-4).

As Donne states, the people that death thinks it has killed were not actually killed by death. Beyond this, death also does not have the ability to kill the poet as well. Considering that the poet has been dead for centuries, Donne is obviously going to have to thoroughly explain why exactly this is true. Donne then begins to explain his reasons. First he states that death is not much difference in appearance from taking a nap: “From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,/ Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow” (5-6).

Following the reasoning that resting or sleeping reinvigorates people and make them more able to enjoy