"The Widow's Lament in Springtime" expressed what I feel is a rather ironic idea. Descriptions of spring usually cause a reader to make associations with new life, a new start, or an end to winter. However, the speaker of this poem associates spring with death, which is quite the opposite of the usual connection to new life.
"Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they..."
The speaker expresses much sorrow at the start of spring because of the memory of the death of her husband. The poem's irony, however, serves an important purpose which is to carry out the extent of which the speaker feels depressed over her loss. Even though there is new life around her and joy at the new season, she does not experience anything but death because she is unable to move on. As nature moves on from death to life from winter to spring, the speaker continues to dwell in her own personal "winter." She also has no intention of overcoming her sorrows, as she states at the end of the poem:
"I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them."
No comments:
Post a Comment