The Flesh And The Spirit Analysis

Anne Bradstreet’s poem “the Flesh and the Spirit” presents through the personified speakers of Flesh and Spirit two different way to live life. Flesh argues that one should focus on surviving and thriving in the physical world, while Spirit argues that one should strive to achieve spiritual purity. These two arguments are not presented with equal effectiveness, because Flesh, or the body, is presented as intrinsically inferior to Spirit. The format of the poem and the use of war imagery in the poem demonstrate how Flesh’s view of life is inferior to the Spirit’s view of life, because Flesh only encages one in immoral concerns. One must overcome and transcended the Flesh in order to find true spiritual fulfillment.
Flesh is presented as the antithesis of Spirit in the poem, and represents a flawed manner of living life. Flesh and Spirit are described as “two sisters” yet these two never stand as equals in the speaker’s eyes (3). This dichotomy between Flesh and Spirit is established within the first few lines of the poem when the speaker states,
“One Flesh was called, who had her eye
On worldly wealth and vanity;
The other Spirit, who did rear
Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.” (4-8) Therefore the reader is already informed that Flesh’s focus is only on “worldly vanity and wealth” (6), while Spirit places
However, through the format of the poem and the imagery of war the superiority of Spirit’s view of life becomes evident. But, this spiritual way of life can only be won by doing battle with the physical world and its temptation. The poem ends with the lines “If I of heaven may have my fill / Take thou the world and all that will (107-108). This shows that even for Spirit attaining entry to heaven is not guaranteed, and can only be achieved by forsaking the physical world and its