To the Mercy Killers

Denotation and Connotation: To the Mercy Killers
Poetry is one of the hardest things to define because it has different meanings to different people. However, there is poetry where it is easy to decipher if people can figure out what type of poetry the author intended it to be such as denotative poetry or connotative poetry. “To the Mercy Killers” written by Dudley Randall in 1973 is an example of a denotative poem about euthanasia and how people should keep living no matter what the costs.
To understand poetry first people must understand the difference between denotation and connotation. Denotation is he explicit or direct meaning or even the set of meanings of a word or expression. This is basically what someone would find in a dictionary. This type of writing is often used by scientists or philosophers. Connotation is the figurative or cultural assumptions that the image supplies or suggests. When writing in connotative style the meaning can be inferred by personal or individual experience, group, general or universal. This type of writing is often used by literary artists as well as advertisers or propagandists.
“To the Mercy Killers” is a poem written about euthanasia because euthanasia is often referred to as mercy killing. Before one even begins to read the poem, the title shows what the poem is going to be about. Euthanasia is painlessly allowing or aiding someone to die who has a serious illness or incurable disease. This poem is about euthanasia because “never conspire with death to set me free but let me know such life as pain can give. Even though I be a clot, an aching clench…a screaming pain, a putrefying stench, still let me live, so long as life shall throb” (McMahan 623). The person does not want to die no matter how much pain they are suffering through instead they would rather bare through the pain and know that in life there is pain and we should live through it instead of caving I and taking the easy road out.
In “To the Mercy Killers” Randall believes that no matter what condition or physical state that someone is in that they should live. This is even true if someone were to be paralyzed “even though I seem not human, a mute shelf of glucose, bottled blood, machinery to swell the lung and pump the heart- even so, do not put out my life”(McMahan 623). Randall believes that even though life will never be the same nor will he be able to do anything not even speak. He knows that he would still be alive and his presence would still be here on earth. No matter to what extent even if he was to ask for death “even though I turn such a traitor to myself as beg to die, do not accomplice me” (McMahan 623). He believes that even if he were to beg for death that no one should succumb to tis desire. In the end of it all, Randall wants to stay alive and to “let me still glow” (McMahan 623). After the pain and vegetable state it is not likely that one will still glow but it could be read as “the ultimate manifestation of hope and can even be called resilience because the speaker in the face of stark adversary continues to stay course and perseveres” (An analysis of the poem).
In a nutshell, poetry can be looked at from different viewpoints and mean different things to different people. However, “To the Mercy Killers” is a denotative poem which can easily be related to euthanasia or mercy killing and how under no circumstances whether it’s extreme pain or someone’s paralyzed should one commit to such an act. Euthanasia is a very controversial topic and most likely won’t change for many years to come.