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What Is The Tone Of The Visionary By Emily Bronte

Decent Essays

‘The Visionary’ by Emily Bronte is a poem about the future, as indicated by its title, and focuses on the feelings of the speaker such as the concern of safety and also the feelings of isolation and loneliness. The dilemmas faced by the speaker are explored through contrasts as well as imagery and structure to convey a tone of indecision but ambition throughout the poem. Bronte uses contrasts in order to portray the polarised feelings between the inside of the house, where the speaker feels safe, and the hostility faced outside. In the first line ‘the house ‘ is personified and said to be ‘silent’ which evokes imagery of serenity and peace, whereas outside she is ‘dreading every breeze’; the determiner ‘every’ implying the relentlessness of …show more content…

The use of a dramatic monologue gives poem a more conversational and personal tone, much like the reader entering the speaker's own thoughts. Through this narrative, the speaker focuses on her future lover whom she describes as an ‘angel (that) night tracks the waste of frozen snow’. The supernatural and religious imagery presents the idea of the speaker being almost ephemeral and omnibenevolent, and in turn idealising them. This interpretation can be further supported through the reference of the ‘little lamp’ being the ‘wanderer’s guiding-star’, with the ‘star’ in particular being an object which is unreachable. The diminutive of ‘little’ to describe the lamp has connotations of being vulnerable which is contrasted from the ‘strong rays’ that she sees. This may be symbolic of the disproportional amount of hope and passion that she puts on this ‘little lamp’. The lover may also be likened to the snow, with its white colour which is has connotations of being pure- the colour in which ‘angels’ are often depicted. However, the setting of the ‘frozen snow’ further adds to the idealizing of the lover at it shows his determination to track through the bleak environment. More supernatural references are to describe the lover in later stanzas such as ‘visitant of air’ and ‘Strange Power’ which implies that

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