Poetry Analysis for "Death is not the End" for Bob Dylen (Essay Sample)

Author Tutor Course Date Analysis of “Death is Not the End”             Poetry has been one of the most fundamental literary works in both the contemporary and conventional societies. Indeed, they have always played a key role in shaping the agenda of the society through highlighting pertinent issues in the society with the aim of effecting a paradigm change in opinions and activities of the society at large. In spite of this, poetry presents immense difficulties amongst large proportion of people especially given the fact that its message is usually hidden behind hard-to-decipher statements. This, however, does not undermine its capacity to communicate ideas. It is often the case that the predisposing message that a poem or song aims at passing across would be deciphered through careful analysis of the words, alongside the word order, tone and figures of speech. This is the case for Bob Dylan’s poem/song “Death is not the End”, whose word order, tone, words, figures of speech and images all point to a message of hope aimed at encouraging individuals that are encountering difficult situations.             Perhaps one of the most conspicuous things about the poem is the tone that the poet adopts in passing the message. Indeed, it should be noted that the poet outlines a number of desperate situations through which the reader could be going or rather sad events that the reader could be experiencing. A case in point is the statement “When you're sad and when you're lonely
And you haven't got a friend” (line 1-2), or the ominous situation underlined by the statement “the storm clouds gather round you, And heavy rains descend” (line 17-18). Nevertheless, these lines are followed by the statement “Just remember that death is not the end”. Of particular note is the fact that not only is the statement repeated at the end of every stanza but also the statement “Just remember that death is not the end, Not the end, not the end” is made in every stanza. The repetition of this statement underlines the main message of the poem, which is that the readers or audience should look beyond the current situation and have hope in the fact that the bad experiences will pass.             On the same note, the poet draws from a number of images in order to convey the message of gloom and hope. It is well acknowledged that poets commonly use visual images although some strive to appeal to or trigger other senses. In the poem, Dylan uses the image of clouds to demonstrate the gloom that the audience could be experiencing. He states “When the storm clouds gather ’round you, And heavy rains descend”, which is complemented by the statement “When the cities are on fire, With the burning flesh of men”. Of course, it should be acknowledged that the audience or reader may not even see the scenario described by the statements, at least not in such grisly details. Nevertheless, the statements are bound to elicit some feelings of despair as the audience imagines the scenarios of burning human flesh, or the gloom that covers the earth when the rain it is just about to rain. The poet, nevertheless, still uses images to offer a message of hope as demonstrated in the fourth stanza where he states “Oh, the tree of life is growing, Where the spirit never dies. And the bright light of salvation shines, In dark and empty skies”. This statement is bound to conjure images of hope irrespective of the severity of the negative experiences that an individual is having.             Further, the poet uses figures of speech in demonstrating the despair that is visited upon his target audience. This involves making a particular statement in terms of another, in which case a figurative interpr...