THEMES

The poem is an eye opener on the reality that surrounds death. It lays emphasizes on the following themes:

• Grief free farewell: the poetic personae has it emphasized in the poem that no one should feel bad, cry or mourn when he dies. This is because he is going to see his creator in a better place

 

• Courage in the face of death: in the poem, one is encouraged to embrace the phenomenon of death since it is inevitable and will always come to us.

 

• Life after death: it is always emphasized in the poem that there exists a place where one will find him/herself after embracing death. The nature of the place, the poetic personae did not generally explain. But, individually, he opines that he hopes to see his pilot face to face when he dies. Where this pilot is, the poetic personae did not say. But, if one assumes that he pilot refers to God, then, it can be said that the pilot is in heaven.

 

• Time: one of the prominent themes in the poem is the concept of time. The reader is meant to understand that there is time for everything and this time takes permission from no one to occur, and as such, waits for no one. The time to be born and time to die. Then, it tells us not to bother about the time of death but to embrace it. It would also preach that when any awful event of life occurs, one should embrace it so as to be able to understand and proffer a lasting solution to it.

 

 

 

POETIC DEVICES

• Alliteration: This is when two consonant sounds follow each. This device is employed in stanza one, line two “And one clear call for me” and line two of the second stanza, “Too full for sound and foam”.

 

• Euphemism: This is when something harsh and unpleasant is said or expressed in a mild way. The notion of death which is known to be unpleasant is set in the poem as something simple and normal. Mild words and expressions like, “one clear call, I embark and crost the bar” are used in the poem to refer to death.

 

• Symbolism: This is the use of symbols and symbolic expressions to depict an idea. Expressions like “sunset and evening stars” symbolizes beginning and the end respectively. “Bar” symbolizes death, and “bell” symbolizes time.

 

• Repetition: This is the mentioning of a word or group of word twice or more times in a poem mainly for emphasizes. The poem hints more on the time, as such, the word “when” is repeated in the poem in the last lines of the third and last stanza. It emphasizes that death will surely come in time, though the time is often unknown to us. “May” is another word that is repeated in the poem in line 3 of the first stanza and line 3 of the third stanza. It is emphasized to hint the notion of no mourning when death comes. Also in the poem, the notion of death is repeatedly emphasized in all the stanzas.

 

• Imagery: This is when a word or group of words create(s) sound, image, smell, and taste in our mind. Audio and visual imagery can be found in line 1 of stanza three: “evening bell”. It creates sound in the reader’s mind and a picture of a bell too. In line 1 and 2 of stanza two, the poetic personae creates an audio image with the idea of the sound made when the sea tide moves. Words like, the dark, flood, boundless deep, pilot, bar and so on creates visual image. The reader is made to visualize them in his/her mind when reading the poem.

 

• Metaphor: This is the direct comparison of two phenomenon (things, persons etc.). The quality of the pilot as the one who directs the cause of an aero plane and the passengers is used metaphorically in the poem to refer to the quality/ability of the one who directs the cause of the universe and all the living things in it – God. More so, the act of crossing the bar is compared to the act of dying or transiting to the next world.

 

• Irony: This simply means opposite of what is meant. The use of this technique is not obvious in the poem. However it can be fished out easily with a close attention. In reality, death is not something to cheer about since it means that someone, probably someone dear to heart, is gone and gone forever. But the poem encourages the reader to accept the event of death with a good heart, whether you are the deceased or a relation. Hence, it is ironical as the reader expects that death will be condemned, rather, it is condoned.