The importance of life

Life is by far one of the greatest mysteries in man’s life. What are we? Where we came from? What is our mission in Earth? In case we have one. Opposite to these uncertainties about life, also emerges the concept of death. Religious would say that when dying people dye to a worldly life to born to a spiritual one and that death is also part of life. However, there are people who can not endure with the fact of loosing a close relative. The following poem written by Edna St Vincent Millay and the extract taken from “At the Bay” by Katherine Mansfiel illustrates both views of death.
To begin with, the title of the poem “Dirge without music” gives the reader a first glance of what will be the content of the poem. Dirge is a sad song sung at funerals; in this case the feeling grief of such event is emphasized by the absence of music which at the time appears in the text as a metaphor of life. The theme of the poem is “death” and a sub-theme would be “grief after the death of a loved person” and “lack of resignation”; being the last mentioned the most exploited by the speaker of the poem. The vocabulary is simple and clear. However, it is explicit and rich as regard to the use of nouns to describe the positive aspects of people: “the beautiful, the tender”, characteristics only appreciated after facing death. As well as the accurate use of adjectives to describe some features: “elegant and curled is the blossom”. Moreover, the writer selection of some words and phrases contributes effectively to the reader’s understanding of such a sorrowful event. In “down into the darkness of the grave”; readers can realize how deep is the pain caused with this death.