Tomorrow At Dawn Poem Analysis

Tomorrow, At Dawn is a poem by Victor Hugo that can relate to many authors who write poetry that is related to mourning or the emotions associated with the loss of something valuable. The poem is about Victor’s late daughter Leopoldine who drowned in February of 1843. She drowned with her husband, Charles Vacquerie, when she was only nineteen. The poem was published in 1856. In the poem, Victor speaks as a withered man, lost in his own mind, traveling through darkness and tragedy. He portrays a dark, gloomy, deserted image of loneliness throughout the poem. He believes the death of his daughter reflects the dreary, cold feeling he holds within himself. He believes that when people read this poem they will understand and feel what it is like

He describes “I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts” (l.5) and “I will not look at the gold of evening which falls” (l.9). By using personification, Victor makes the pain he is feeling come alive, almost as if it were human. Victor Hugo also uses a simile as another type of figurative language. In line 8, Victor states “Sorrowed, and the day for me will be as the night.” He is trying to show that everyday is becoming the same. His days, which are supposed to be filled with light and laughter, are becoming dark. The separation between day and night is slowly becoming a distant memory. He is not feeling the sun rise in the morning, for he is feeling the cold of night forever. He has fallen so deep in his mourning, he can not tell the days and nights apart from each other. Victor states “Seeing nothing of outdoors, hearing no noise” (l.6) he is furthering our understanding that he only knows one thing, darkness. The figurative language brings Victor’s pain and sadness to readers attention. Through the figurative language Victor uses, readers understand and feel as though we have lost someone too. Readers can really feel the pain Victor feels as if they knew him