When Death Comes By Mary Oliver Analysis

What is it mean to be prepare for death when it comes? A poem called “When Death Comes” written by Mary Oliver was a twenty-eight lines poem that was about death and how she describes the woman who is the speaker of the poem getting prepare for her death, so when death comes for her, she will be ready to go without any regrets. Throughout eight poems in unit two readings, I chose this poem because I admire her strong, confident, and brave feelings. This poem had inspired me to live my life to the fullest and do things that will not leave myself any regrets when death comes for me later on. In Mary Oliver’s “When Death Comes”, the speaker uses persona, simile, and repetition to show how the woman in the poem was prepare for death even though
Simile is a literature element that uses like or as to compare two different things, just like metaphor but a little simpler to understand. For example, in the poem, the first few stanzas used a lot of simile to compare death, “when death comes like the hungry bear in autumn” (line 1-2), in those lines, the speaker compared death like a hungry bear in autumn, which mean during the fall, a bear would be preparing for hibernate in the winter, so the bear going to be very desperate for food than ever so it can get enough nutrients and energy to make it through the winter. Therefore, death is just like a hungry bear, the speaker saying that we all should live a splendid life to the fullest before death, she even compares it to make the point that all human should live desperately for joy and a good life, so when death comes, they will make it through without any dissatisfaction. Another example of simile in this poem is “when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades” (7-8), this time, the speaker compare death like an iceberg between shoulder blades, which also mean that the speaker giving reader an idea about how it feels when death come because iceberg is cold and big, and between our shoulder blades is the heart, the most important organ that keep us alive. The heart is normally warm and pumping blood throughout all parts of our body to keep us active, but if there is an iceberg lay on the heart, it would kill the heart by its coldness and heaviness. The speaker had used a lot of simile at the beginning of this poem to compare death to many things, so it gives reader a little bit understanding of death and the feelings of it. Of course when she compared it, it would not be pleasant because deaths are always unpleasant to all