Ode To A Large Tuna In The Market Analysis

Death, we all face it at some point in our lives. Although it is inevitable, there are certain ways in this world we live in to go about dying. “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” by Thomas Gray and “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” by Pablo Naruda, both poems about the death of something. In Gray’s poem describes a cat whose curiosity gets the best of him while staring into a bowl of goldfish. In the poem “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” Naruda is speaking on behalf of a tuna, now dead, that has shown up in the market and the adventures he must have had with the sea. The poems may address different victims fallen to death, but they both have similarities such as: use of metaphors, personification, Tone and mood. The poem “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” is very choppy in its structure with the use of a lot of similes and repetition. In contrast “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” uses rhyme scheme and relies a lot on its vivid imagery and diction to tell the story.

Both poems are obviously about death and they may contrast in some respect, but they have a lot in common. Metaphors are used throughout both poems. In “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes” the author uses metaphors to help describe the characters within and the setting of the poem. “Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue” (Gray, line 16). In the second poem “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” the author refers