Death Be Not Proud

Kayla McPeak
South University Online
February 23, 2013
Instructor: Kathy Knecht
English 1002: Week 1 Assignment 2

“Death Be Not Proud”
John Donne Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Part A: My Emotions When I first read this, it was a little depressing, just because it was talking about death in general. However, when I read it again I had a better understanding of where the author was coming from, and how he felt about death. I had an understanding and open-mindedness emotion during this poem for the simple fact that so many people avoid even talking about death, let alone writing about it. However, having said that, I think this poem that should help people not be so fearful of dying.

Part B: Connecting Specific Language with Your Emotions
Fill in the chart below for your poem. Please refer to the example given on the Assignment page. Each cell of the chart will expand as you type, so don’t worry about space!

Death Be Not Proud: Words/Phrases | My Emotions | Explanation | Line 2: Mighty and Dreadful | Strong, agony, horrible, frightened | All of the emotions I get from those two words are awful. If you read the whole line, it’s to reassure you (the reader) that death is none of those things. | Line 3: For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow | Powerless | People have no power of death, we are all mortal, and we will all die. Whether it’s of natural causes or freak accidents. | Line 5: rest and sleep | Comfort, warmth, content | He is trying to help people understand that death is much like sleep. Everyone loves to sleep; if we love sleep so much, why is it we all fear death? | Line 7 & 8: And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. | Mortal, relief | All the good men/women with us now in life die eventually. They are then free from all the evil, trials and tribulations of the world we know. | Line 14: And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. | Hope, love, happiness, immortality | The bible states that death is just a state of unconsciousness, and when the rapture occurs, the “dead” will again be conscious and those still living will experience judgment day, those good men/women will meet the lord in the air where they will become immortal because there is no death. |

Part C: Symbols in the Poem and Characteristics
Fill in the chart below for your poem. Please refer to the example given on the Assignment page, and also to the lecture on Symbolism under Week 1.

Symbol | Characteristics | Death | The end to life we know, but the beginning of an eternal life somewhere else. | Poppy | Flower that can simulate death due to the natural opiate within the flower that man use as an analgesic in order to sleep, simulating death. | Sleep | Simulates death. When we are sleeping we are unconscious. Death is supposed to be a state of unconsciousness. |

Part D: Pulling It All Together John Donne very carefully chose every word he used in this poem. The main symbol he used for this poem was death. I believe he was trying to get his point across that death is something we should not fear, but something we should embrace. He used sleep as one of his symbols as well, basically saying that sleep simulates death. If we love sleep so much, and it’s just a taste of death. If that is the case, what are we so afraid of? Another symbol on line 8, Donne, used the phrase “soul’s delivery”. By using this phrase he is trying to say that the day-to-day evil‘s that we see, hear and speak are all gone. Also, that we are relieved of our pains and suffering in this life and our souls are delivered to nothing but happiness and joy in an eternal afterlife. Which leads into the last symbol he used in the last line in his poem, “death, thou shalt die”, meaning that death too is mortal in a sense. For there to be death there must be life, and for there to be death is eternal life.

References

Acosta, D. L. P. a. A. Literature: A World of Writing Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays VitalSource eBook for Education Management Corporation (1st ed). Pearson Learning Solutions. Retrieved from http://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/books/9780558711825/id/ch09box29

References: Acosta, D. L. P. a. A. Literature: A World of Writing Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays VitalSource eBook for Education Management Corporation (1st ed). Pearson Learning Solutions. Retrieved from http://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/books/9780558711825/id/ch09box29