POEM ANALYSIS

Comparison of poem “Dog's Death” and “I Used to Live Here Once”

Comparison of poem “Dog's Death” and “I Used to Live Here Once”

Introduction

The death of a family pet can be one of the hardest experiences in a person's life. For those who mourn the passing of their dog suffer alone because they do not want others to see them grieving. This may sound like emotional babble to some people but to others, it would come off as a comical mushiness. In John Updike's poem, “Dog's Death”, the dog who dies in the poem and her owner expresses a sense of abandonment which illustrates the mourning of one who loses his dog.

Experts think the use of a formalist approach for analyzing this poem will best fit for reflecting the symbolism, empathy, and imagery designed to reveal the tone they observed. This author must have designed from a real life experience to have created such well developed description of human heartache by the death of his pet. A “good dog” recognizes her master as a god and will do anything to please him with unconditional love. A “good dog” will go far as controlling her automatic urges and innocent behaviors which satisfy her master and places a great deal of responsibility on the master as well. When pets die, we are left feeling solely accountable. This is the tone that is set in “Dog's Death”. The fact this poem is titled “Dog's Death” demonstrates that this can be viewed as a familiar experience from which all dog owners can relate to (Koch, 2008).

For the story, “I Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys, we could argue that the story is about a woman who moved away from her homeland to go to a new place and now returns home for a reason not stated. The two children who are playing outside the woman's old house in the sunshine ignore her. It may be possible that the two children ignore the woman because she left the West Indies to live somewhere else and therefore they believe that she does not exist. Is this what is going on? Experts believe there is a bigger picture here.

The speaker tells us in paragraph three that “that the sky had a glassy look….” This may be because the woman visitor does not see with her own eyes any more, or it could be that she does see with her own eyes and can see the true nature of the sky.

The speaker tells us in paragraph five that the woman sees two children outside her home playing. The woman calls to them but “they didn't answer…” her. In the next two paragraphs, the speaker tells us that the woman calls out to the children two more times but still they did not reply. We can assume that the children ignore the woman because the children do not know her, or because the woman left her home and has not returned until ...