We Are Seven Sparknotes

In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies,” the reader is introduced to painful descriptions of death and decay. Childhood is a world where your mother and father, or everyone important to you, simply does not die. Distant relatives, ones you have never known may pass away, but as a child you are unaware and unconcerned. To be a child is to be carefree— to be free from the worries and duties of responsibility. The important figures to you as a child are simply your mother and father.

Throughout the history of literary works, there have been many themes that can be found in all of them such as death. Over time, death has been found to be a prominent theme amongst writers of nearly every era in literary history. As an excellent example, During the Romantic era William Wordsworth’s “We are Seven” gives readers a strange feeling of death that still evades the comprehension of a little girl whose two siblings are deceased. The topic of death can be found later on in history in the work of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener. In both writings, there are dealings with death.

In the poem, the little girl says, “Two of us in the church-yard lie, / My sister and my brother; (Lines 21-22).” Insisting that they are still seven, the young girl shows a lot of grace and mature understanding. This is the majority of the poem because the narrator thinks it is most important that the young girl understands she has still has five siblings, despite two of them have passed and, “their graves are green, they may be seen (Line 37).” The girl is only eight years of age and she understands that her deceased siblings are still her siblings even though they are not still living. Making sure she understands she still has five siblings is exactly what the narrator’s goal is, but the narrator is pretending to believe they are only five. The narrator reinforces his “belief” in lines 35-36: “If two are in the church-yard laid,/ Then ye are only five.” The conversation resurfaces later in the poem, in lines 61-64: “How many are you, then, said I,/ If they two are in heaven?/ Quick was the little Maid’s reply,/ O Master! We are seven.” No matter what is said by the narrator, the eight year old girl insists that they are seven. Two siblings being dead is the most reinforced because the narrator and the little girl know that her siblings at Conway or at sea are anticipated to return home sometime. The other two, the deceased two, will never return home.

Mary Oliver’s poem, “Sleeping in the Forest,” presents a peaceful and vivid representation of death and its relationship with nature. As the poem begins, the reader is introduced to the earth welcoming the speaker back into the realm of nature. Man was created from the dust of the earth and when we die, our bodies return to the dust. However, this poem presents a more beautiful image of what death is composed of. Death is often portrayed as being frightening and disturbing. When individuals are presented with the thought of death, they often push this thought away out of fear and ignorance. Everyone will die someday whether we ignore the thought of death or not. However, Oliver creates a relaxing and welcoming image for the reader on what death (ideally) is. Obviously, since Oliver is still alive, she doesn’t know what death feels like. However, the way she describes death, I hope that it feels like sleeping in a forest; full of stars and enchantment.

Elizabeth Bishop’s poem First Death in Nova Scotia follows a small girl who is introduced to the concept of death for the first time through her cousin, Arthur. Even though the narrator is just a child who is experiencing death for this first time, she is extremely perceptive of her surroundings. The details and language the girl uses to describe the situation illustrates the difficulty the girl is having coming to terms with the idea of death, while also confusing her throughout the poem. The important concepts of death, grief, and loss of innocence are conveyed by Bishop through the encounter the girl is having with death. Bishop’s theme in the poem seems to be that death can be extremely sorrowful yet hard to understand and as such, people deal with these feelings in different ways, even children. The narrator, being a small child, naturally uses distractions in her surroundings and her figurative language to start to understand death at the end of the poem.

In the novel ,The Natural by Bernard Malamud,Roy Hobbs a soon to be baseball player with his whole life ahead of him thinks his baseball career will skyrocket and will become a well known baseball player,but he let is love life interfere with his career. Roy Hobbs was shot at nineteen years old and lost his best friend all because of the same girl.His career skyrocketed but it was at the time where his age did not do him so good.The protagonist Roy Hobbs is a progressive character because although he was shot at nineteen and forced to take a fifteen year leave out of the big league baseball,he overcame his injuries and was determined to be the best.

She sent her child to sing in the choir, in hopes she would be safe in God’s tabernacle, but instead, the child went to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church death trap. Secondly, I disagree with the way Dudley Randall ended the poem. Even though the reader can assume what happened to the child, the poem slightly leaves you with a cliffhanger. The child’s lifeless body cannot be found by her desperate and destitute mother. The audience can be left feeling melancholy and incomplete. Lastly, Randall, in my opinion, strategically wrote stanza five in the poem very well,“She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet”(Randall 19). Lastly, the white gloves and white shoes represent purity and innocence of the adolescent. The way the little girl brushes her black hair and bathes in sweet aromas represents the child’s vulnerability and how sweet the little things are in life.

Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.

Robert Frost’s poem “Home Burial,” written in 1914, centers around the conversation of a married couple whose relationship is struggling after the death of their young child. A duality in meaning exists in the poem’s title, “Home Burial,” which references not only the death of their child but also the death of their marriage. Is the child’s death the sole cause of their marital distress? Robert Frost opens the poem in the couple’s home with the husband watching as his wife, Amy, begins to descend the staircase (1-2). After a few verses, the audience has become witnesses to the marriage’s descent into nothingness. The child’s grave lies forever in the background, framed by a small window at the top of the stairs (Frost 24-31). In Robert Frost’s “Home Burial”, the marriage of Amy and her husband is irreparable due to differences in expression, acceptance, and perception.

Life has many lessons in store for us. Often times, one of the most terrifying and traumatic lessons a child can learn really has nothing to do with life--but rather, death. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that we all must encounter at some point. No matter the age or circumstance, it is hard to understand how something so dark and mystical can impact our lives so much. It is even harder to cope with the loss of a loved one and to come to terms with knowledge that each day we live, we become one closer to dying.

Mortality is the state of being subject to death. For centuries, authors have been pondering the answer to the question why does someone have to die and could they escape death. In Colette Inez’s poem, “Back When All Was Continuous Chuckles”, the speaker and Doris have a very humorous view on death before a tragic event occurs that enlightens the pair to reality. The poem, “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, is about a group of pool players that describes their actions which will lead to severe suspected consequences. In the poems, “Back When All Was Continuous Chuckles” by Colette Inez and “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, reflects a theme of mortality based on the shifting tone, the poems’ diction, and the child-like speaker.

In his poem “On Turning Ten”, Billy Collins uses the voice of a young boy to show the moment when a child loses his innocence and is faced with the inevitability of growing up and, eventually, death. This young man, barely ten years old, is suddenly bereft of the magic of his youth, and realizes that he is not immortal, as he previously felt. He describes growing up as a sickness, and yearns for the days when he could become anything he wanted to, just by imagining it. With the increase of age, the wonder and mystery of the world begins to dim, and through this boy’s eyes the reader can see how everyone struggles with the cruel reality of death.

The first paragraphs paint a picture of an idyllic rural area where everything seems perfect and serene. However this couldn’t be further away from the truth and as the story progresses it becomes clear that, beneath the flowers and sunshine, the village hides a dark secret. The opening of the story serves to increase the impact the gruesome ending has on the reader. Irony is also present as the story reaches its ending, specifically when Davy Hutchinson is spared the execution on this day, and the crowd is relieved. It is clear that the townspeople believe that the murder of a mother is preferable to the murder of a young boy, even though the act in itself is completely unnecessary. Within moments of being spared his life Davy Hutchinson is handed pebbles. He is expected to take part in the murder of his mother and be involved in the same horrific ritual that he just escaped. The older children are happy when they find out they didn't ‘win’ the lottery, even though they know that their mother is about to die.

In Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads, he writes, “I have wished to keep my reader in the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him” (297). With this assertion, Wordsworth highlights his desire that readers of his poetry respond with sentiment when presented with genuine, unembellished characters. His attempts to prove this claim can be seen in the poems Michael and The Ruined Cottage. Observing how the two poems handle certain rhetorical devices—a frame of narration, personification of nature, meditation on ordinary objects, and Biblical allusion—reveals their intended purpose as promotions of empathy. Discerning the similarities and differences between Michael and The Ruined Cottage allows the moral lessons within Wordsworth’s poetic experimentation to be uncovered.

Poetry is an art form that has often been highly regarded. It brings together some of the most complex forms of writing in the English language. Two poems that focus on the same topic may sometimes, have completely different views and provide perspectives that may not have been considered by the other. Two of these Poems are Let Me Die A Youngman’s Death by Roger McGough and On Death by Anne Killigrew. The former poem by Roger McGough talks of how the speaker does not wish to die the peaceful death of an elderly person but rather the chaotic death of a young man. In death is nothing at all the speaker proposes that all should be as happy as before his death, and not view it in such a negative and secretive light.