“Death” in John Donne’s “Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud”

The most important topic of this poem is death and the theme is one should not fear death. Death is something temporary it is not something eternal – this is the second theme of poem.

The poem begins by addressing to dead dramatically and directly and which is an address to something that we realistically know.

The first quatrain of the poem attacks that and it attacks that for its pride. Here, it tells that not to be proud. The speaker denies that it is mighty and dreadful. In the third and fourth lines poem says that death is not even strong enough to kill the speaker himself and this is a paradox. The speaker uses four arguments to demonstrate that death is not to be feared. The first argument is can be found in the first quatrain. The speaker says that death is not really capable of killing people. People do not always die when we expect them to. Even men himself can control it, thereby the men proves that death is a slave, because it always ruled by others. On the other hand, there are other ways of sleeping that are more pleasant such as drugs. These are the two other arguments he poses to prove that death is not something to be feared. 

           In the 9th line , poem says that “thou art slave” it means that death is not master. It is just a slave. This is what the poem argue death is slave to fate, chance, king and desperate men. The poem uses personification fate and chance are personified. He treats fate and chance as if they were two persons here.

           Finally when we look at the couplet part of the poem , it says that death really is a sleep and from this sleep we will awaken into eternal life in the end. Death is a short sleep. These two lines explaine all the paradoxes in this poem. In here, death is not an ending but a beginning of a new life.

              So, all along the poem we see that, the poem is attacking to death. The speaker in the poem tries to show the weakness of death. And even more, the speaker maybe mocking with the death. According to our poem, there is nothing to be afraid of death.


HIDDENCOMP