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Analysis Of Richard Wilbur's Death Of A Toad

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Richard Wilbur’s “Death Of A Toad” successfully utilizes imagery, diction, and structure to describe the thoughts of the narrator who witnesses a toad’s death and begins to question life’s purpose for all creatures. The narrator describes the garden in which the toad spends its last moments of life with vivid and descriptive imagery to highlight the beauty of nature and signify the idea that even as life ends it is surrounded by more life.The lines, “the garden verge, and sanctuaried him, under the cineraria leaves, in the shade of the ashen and heartshaped leaves,” describe a beautiful sanctuary in which the toad will be able to take his last breath. When one life ends all other life goes on. The speaker realizes this and questions his own

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