Literary theme analysis across major works

¶ … Night That She Lived

The narrator of this work gives the indication that the setting of the work is a deathbed, it might be in a hospital as there are reportedly others who will go on living that engender in the dying woman and those who presumably care about her a sense of jealousy, "That others could exist / While she must finish quite,/A jealousy for her arose/So nearly infinite" yet more likely given the period it was a home setting with several loved ones around gesticulating about the events and the losses. The poem to me seems rather straightforward, having been present during several peaceful deaths as the time seems both defined and memorable, as they notice things that would normally go unnoticed. This could mean in nature, as is implied in the first stanza or it could mean in the practical aspects of siting with and caring for a person on the precipice of death. The work is meaningful because the woman could be anyone, with the exception that she obviously has several loved ones about her. The symbolism most striking is the reed touching to the water, which is a simple simile of the woman's graceful death. The theme of the poem is the transient nature of life, as well as the poem's psychological realization of death and a life lived as something both memorable and common ordinary and easily forgotten.

The Transience of Life

The work describes several paradox that support the transience regarding life and death, surrounding the death of this woman, the night was ordinary "a common night, / Except the dying; this to us/Made nature different" they go on to notice the simplest things they might otherwise overlook. This message indicates that these people assembled recognize both the fact that the night is just like any other, the place like any other but that a life, obviously of some significance is ending which is not an ordinary event. It is in fact a supernatural yet calmly natural event "By this great light upon our minds / Italicized, as't were." Italicized in this sense meaning set apart, the memory of the time of the notice of nature all compounding to create a vision "light" that was unlike ordinary vision.

The second paradox described in the work that demonstrates a connection to the transience of life and death is the passage and thought s above mentioned that stress that this profound woman. Again obviously a woman of high regard had to die while others simply went on living. The act of living among those who remain is profound only for those present and for a time. Those outside the circle could go on living without a remembrance of the woman or the profound nature of death.

The third profound paradox regards time and its measure on life and death, as in one passage time is "narrow" while in the next line indicates that the "notice came" at great "length." This loss of a sense of time that often accompanies monumental and cathartic events. Time seems both infinite and short because all is being noticed and no one has words, "Too jostled were our souls to speak."

Even the title of the poem is a paradox that supports the idea of the transience of life. "The Last Night She Lived," as if living can be defined by the prone still and non-responsive dying woman on a bed. The only definition would be a legal and possibly emotional one, as living denotes a much more active and fruitful existence. While the act of dying is described as peaceful, excluding the "mentioned and forgot" passage where with baited breath the loved one sit around watching and waiting. Peaceful death is very much like this, as a person will pause many times until they finally seem to forget to breath that last time.