Confronting Death in Richard Wilburs The Pardon Essay -- Wilbur The P

Confronting Death in Richard Wilburs The Pardon Death is the issue at the core of Richard Wilburs poem The Pardon. This is apparent from the opening line, My cross lay dead volt days without a grave. What is not immediately apparent, however, is that this is not simply a poem or so a young boys sadness over the handout of his dog. What Wilbur discusses in this piece is much more profound, cutting through the superficialities of finish and confronting fears and doubts that all of us experience at different points in our lives. This is a poem about atonement, about facing the mistakes of the past and confronting them directly. More specifically, it is about reconciling ourselves with remainder and everything that lifes deepest tr elddies entail. The adult narrator of the poem is haunted by his past, unable to cope with feelings and emotions that he had as a youth. He pull down seems to have attempted to repress a portion of his life. However, as a result of a chillingly realist ic dream, he is at last labored to baptismal font what he thought was buried for good. The realization that comes because of this, the realization that last is not something to run from, is the true meaning of the poem and the crux of what Wilbur is try to say to the reader. The Pardon brush aside be divided into three apparent parts. The first sub-section is made up of stanzas one and two, which detail a tragical event that occurred in the life of the narrator when he was ten age old the death of his dog. It is in these first eight lines that the narrator tries to communicate the reader an understanding of what he felt when this happened. He uses very descriptive words and phrases, providing vivid imagery of the various sights, smells, and sounds that he experienced. H... ...ightful look into death and the fears and doubts that it induces within all of us. The narrator of the poem is a man who has never been able to confront death, beginning with the loss of his dog at the age of ten. He has chosen to avoid it his entire life, rather than attempting to understand it. It is at long last as an adult that a vivid dream causes him to finally face his fears he sees his dog rising out of its grave and begins to ask it for forgiveness. The dog in the dream can be seen as a histrionics of his trepidation. Once he is able to confront it and ask for its pardon, he can finally begin to cope with the idea of death. Works Cited Jarrell, Randall. Fifty age of American Poetry. The Third Book of Criticism. NY Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969. Wilbur, Richard. Mayflies. Mayflies New Poems and Translations. NY Harcourt Brace, 2000.