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Mutability Essay

Decent Essays

Percy Shelley’s “Mutability” talks to mankind about our human condition of change. Shelly seems to be suggesting that the daily life of humans is inconsistent and every day, within our limited lives, we have different feelings. The only thing that outlives each of us is Mutability. Shelly uses a series of different metaphors, similes, and diction within each stanza to convey a different view of our ever changing lives.
The first stanza of this poem compares human life to clouds and gives us an image of the evening’s sky. Shelly’s description of the clouds being “lost forever” as the night closes round tells the reader that everybody is lively and bright in the day but slowly disappear in the night. Every night someone disappears in their …show more content…

A lyre’s tune should be harmonious but instead it is not. This represents that “nothing gold can stay” (Robert Frost line 8). The lyres have "dissonant strings", which means that they are out of tune. Shelley uses this to symbolize the fact that we expect our lives to be one way, but changes that occur make things different. The “various response to each varying blast” means that everybody goes through different events that shape their experiences and "no second motion brings" those feelings back. The use of the word “blast” in the second line of the second stanza makes each pluck of the lyre sound more intense and leave a deep mark in that person. A mark deep enough where that person (the lyre) cannot experience that same …show more content…

It shows inconsistency within our life and behavior. We cannot rest because our dreams can poison our sleep and we cannot be awake because our pondering thoughts can ruin the day. Yet our thoughts can make us laugh or cry or “cast our cares away”. The reader can either hide from the world of the unknown or reason with it with rational thought. Change in a person’s life varies from people to people. The final stanza “frees” the thoughts and emotion of everybody. The path of departure from change is open to everyone. Shelly makes use of strong punctuation such as the exclamation mark to emphasize the point that all things are mutable no matter what. The colon after "free" suggests that the following lines conclude the poem by giving the main message. Man and nature are “in a state of constant perpetual change” (Hicks). The rhyming of sorrow and morrow suggests that even if the day was filled with darkness, there will always be a better tomorrow. The only non-mutable thing is Mutability

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