Funeral Blues Analysis

The poem ‘Funeral Blues’ is about a person’s partner passing away and consequently, their whole world is destroyed and becomes meaningless. Numerous quotes show that the narrator has lost their loved one; for instance “Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come” and “Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead” which are traditional things associated with death. Emotions such as grief, heartbreak, sadness and depression are prominent during the poem and are evident through quotes such as “For nothing now can ever come to any good,” which blatantly exhibit her hopelessness towards life and her newly developed pessimist attitude towards everything. In addition to this, we can also imply that the narrator is distraught because they use quotes such as “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one” and “Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,” which displays the authors emptiness because she wants to abolish natural things which emit light and indicates the darkness in her soul.

Depression is displayed in the quote “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,” it shows the narrator wants time and all communication access to be stopped as her world has been stopped as well. Also that the world has become uninteresting and pointless to the author now and nothing may be more important than the loss of her partner.

Copious techniques have been used within the poem such as sentence structure, because as majority of the lines are the same length, it may be suggested that their life has become repetitive and monotonous now that their partner has deceased. Additionally, in stanza three, in the quote “I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong,” there was a contrast between long and short sentence lengths and it displayed how her partner’s life came to an abrupt end with the short sentence ending.

Several other skills in the author’s language such as repetition is used where the author repeats the use of the word “my,” which shows that her partner was her everything and he belonged with and to her. Moreover, many metaphors have been included such as “He was my North, my South, my East, my West,” which shows that the author’s partner was genuinely her world and guidance in life. Lastly, irony was also used in the language “circle” and “round” in stanza two because it may suggestively be talking about the circle of life, which for the author’s partner, has come to a halt. Furthermore, despite the poem being quite expressive of the emotions it endeavours to show, there are countless in depth, subliminal messages; for instance where it talks about “the white necks” and “black cotton gloves” it suggests that her world has become colourless and has essentially gone from white to black within moments. Penultimate, it is suggested that the narrator desires eternal silence and peace as she wants her senses from the world to be blocked as she quotes “Prevent the dog from barking” and “Silence the pianos”.

Lastly, the author’s use of language such as “Scribbling on the sky” displays that her life may be chaotic and unkempt at the moment and afterwards the quote “Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves,” may possibly show the narrator wants organization and order in her life. Moreover, the impact it has on the reader may be a little upsetting and cause sympathetic emotions towards the narrator, however it may also depress them a little as it shows the harsh and brutal reality of life; that nothing, not even love can last forever. Finally the message it delivers, is that everything good comes to an end and no one is immortal, and also that in the end, death is certain however life is not.