My Contemplation On Death And Innocence

Percy Shelley and George Orwell lived decades apart. Yet, both their writings show marks of resemblance. Ironic Poem about Prostitution and Widow Bird Sate Mourning for Her Love both discern the author's tone and are wary of the audience's mood. Both their works have been created by authors who have shown great exuberance and talent in their fields and have continued to charm and allure readers.

Shelley's poem conveys death in a resigned, wistful and lugubrious tone. The poem shows death by describing the surroundings of the widow bird. "The frozen wind crept on above, / The freezing stream below." Shelley uses this imagery to stress the environment and connotes death to cold and harshness. Orwell's tone throughout the song is naÐ"Їve and mystified. The volta at the end of the poem, "And in her lisping, virgin voice, / Stood out for twenty-five", gives the poem a facetious tone as well. Orwell uses imagery "Her skin was gold, her hair was jet, / Her teeth were ivory," to describe the beauty of the girl he saw. He makes a taboo topic seem extremely humane and understandable.

Both the poems foster an idyll mood and then interject it with a lugubrious topic. This is expedient to get the tacit message across. They both describe death even though they are in different connotations. In Orwell's poem, the author describes the circumstances leading to the death of a virgin. Virgins are often connoted with pureness and goodness. Percy Shelly chronicles death as well but he reveals events after the death of a person/animal. Another similarity that characterizes both the author's writing is the fact that they both use vivid imagery to foster a particular image in the reader's mind. "Her skin was gold, her hair was jet;" is an example of Orwell's imagery. Shelley uses a more subtle approach to this literary device; "There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground."

However, one can identify a set of differences in both these poems. Orwell uses approximate rhyme with a rhyming