C.+Effective+Writing+Rating+2

Katie Flanders Mortality Lies in the Sky To really feel what a poem is saying, asking the question “Why?” isn’t always necessary. Simply get the gist of what the author is saying and let your mind create what it means. In these poems, they are harder to understand, but if you let your mind flow a little, somehow mortality clicks into the picture every time. But mortality is a broad word and is used in two separate ways with these works. Both writers of “On The Beach at Night” and “Starlight” show mortality by writing lines and words to allude to it, yet, the poems differ in the way mortality is defined, giving different senses of life beyond death in each work.

In both these poems, the same plot structure is formed, giving them a similar feeling. They both involve a child and their father, the stars, and the world that lies beyond what they are present in. But these characteristics don’t define the poems. They are defined by the perception of the world based on the author’s ideas as well as the character’s ideas. In “On The Beach at Night,” the father is physically present with the child, looking at the stars but, in “Starlight,” the father is “among the stars.” The child can still talk and feel his father’s presence, but when Levine states, “Then he lifts me to his shoulder, and now I too am among the stars...”, the father is depicted as part of the sky as well as the earth. Life after death in “Starlight,” is more clearly defined because the fatherly figure gives us a picture that the boy is going to be okay, whereas, “On the Beach at Night” mortality is more unknown and “immortal.”

The tones in these two poems are both alike and different. They are alike, because they both explain love and tenderness while giving happier insight about the future. They start off with more saddened language but then become hopeful about how their lives turn out in the end. These poems are different because the father is more God-like in “Starlight.” In “On the Beach at Night,” he is pondering the importance of the solar system and the stars but in “Starlight” he actually is the sky above. You can still feel the love the parent and child have for each other, but the way they address each other in each poem is different. “On the Beach at Night” has a father who is not as authoritative as in “Starlight,” therefore, creating different tones of the characters. This relates to mortality because the child’s perception of life after death could or could not be including their father as a gateway to their future.

There are a lot of examples of mortality that are very evident in these poems. One major example is the stars. In both poems they are seen as something more than the world. They are sort of mystical to the characters and seem to symbolize a further, better future. The sky is also symbolized in the same way. In “Starlight,” the father’s mood changes with the sky. First to describe the sky, Levine states, “the glow of his cigarette, redder than the summer moon riding low over the neighborhood” and then later states, “his eyes closed up against the starlight.” There are definitely changes of mood in this poem that show how the child sees mortality. At first, the child finds it dark and more gloomy, but then, with his father’s presence, he feels much better and becomes more optimistic about the situation. In “On the Beach at Night,” the mood starts out with some dark imagery like in “Starlight,” but then turns to a more ambiguous, yet lighter point of view. When Whitman states, “the burial clouds, in black masses, spreading” it gives the poem a more darkened feel. But, as the child weeps for the stars, she is cured from her sadness by her father, and he allows her to look up to the sky and not be sad, but be hopeful. When he talks about mortality, he states, “Something there shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,” meaning that there is some life that never stops after death and it’s okay to break away into the sky.

Mortality is portrayed in these poems in some different ways, but also is seen as very much alike in each poem according to their images and moods. The differences lie in the different concepts of how mortality is defined and how it is portrayed in the character’s lives. Even though explained differently, mortality still is the basis for understanding both of the poems unique meanings and qualities.