Analysis Of When Death Comes By Mary Oliver

The poem "When death comes" by Mary Oliver describes the speaker 's turmoil of wanting to experience the world and become a part of it before the certainty of death arrives. The speaker wants to live a life where she is not bound by time but grounded by the possibilities stored in the world around her. "I look upon time as no more than an idea/ and I consider eternity as another possibly" (line 13-14) further describes that the speaker sees time as merely an idea if one is living it prosperously and to its full potential. In addition, the theme of the poem focuses on living and leaving the world with "curiosity" (9) rather than spending every moment with uncertainty. The poem "When death comes" illustrates the value of finding self-worth because the speaker "[doesn 't] want to end up having simply having visited the world" (28) instead she wants to become a part of the world, and Mary Oliver demonstrates that with the use of her tone and figurative languages such as similes and repetition. The theme of the poem clearly demonstrates the speaker 's feelings about death through the use of similes to compare death with other unpleasant scenarios. Where the definition of simile is the comparison of two unlike things with the use of like or as. In addition, the use of similes is apparent at the beginning of the poem where the speaker uses it to reference death in three different scenarios. The scenarios being: death in terms of nature, disease, and anatomy. For example, death