Dacre, Death, and Manipulation

Charlotte Dacre, otherwise known as Charlotte King Byrne, was a woman out of step with the traditional expectations of females of her time.  Very reminiscent of a strong and independent woman today, Dacre had three children out of wedlock, pursued a career typically reserved for men, and went on to excel in her career, buoyed by her unconventional antics.  Dacre became a novelist and poet, but rather than adhering to traditional standards of the fairer sex, her female characters were strong-willed and aggressive, with raging sexual desires  (“Charlotte Dacre”).

In addition to untraditional portrayals of women in her literature, Dacre employed death in creative ways.  In her poem “The Mistress to the Spirit of her Lover,” death comes as the ghost of a woman’s late beloved.  In another poem, “Death and the Lady,” Death is actually a principal character, capable of holding an entire reasoned conversation with a human being.  But beyond personifying death in her poems, Dacre goes so far as to allocate unto it a very human attribute, but one that suits death well in her verses: the ability to manipulate.

It is this manipulation, present in both poems, that allows Dacre’s readers to deviate from conventional thoughts of death as an abstraction and permit their minds to consider it concretely.  This is perhaps Dacre’s exact objective: to bring death to life, if you will.  To demystify it and familiarize her readers with it.  Whether this speculated objective of hers was intended to frighten her audience or evoke a sense of comfort with the idea of death, either or both can be accomplished through “The Mistress to the Spirit of her Lover” and “Death and the Lady.”  Examples abound in these two poems of Dacre’s clear ease to accept death.  It seems, however, that Dacre thinks it necessary to strong-arm her readers into such ease.  She certainly does so by portraying death as a manipulative being whose persuasive talents draw its objects into the belief that death is their best option.

Beginning with the subtler of the two, manipulation in “The Mistress to the Spirit of her Lover” is far from overt.  There is no dialogue between the two presences in the poem: the mistress and her lover’s spirit.  The scene is a forlorn woman sitting on a rock, looking to the edge of a cliff where the spirit of her lover appears to be contemplating a jump.  The majority of the verses consist of her lamenting his insubstantiality.  Throughout the poem runs an undercurrent of her potential mental instability, which makes it all the more easy for death to influence her mind. 

Evidence of her fragile mental state comes most obviously from the very fact that she is seeing a ghost.  Then it comes through in Dacre’s words: “Oh! Lover illusive, my senses to mock -/’Tis madness presents if I venture to think” (15-16).  That line, which comes early in the poem, teeters on the brink between realizing that she is flirting with insanity and not caring, as long as she is able to see her lover.  She is able to recognize the fact that he is an “embodied mist” (21). 

However, the longer she contemplates his status as a spirit, the more easily death is able to manipulate her mind.  She is initially worried for the spirit, afraid that he will fall off the cliff.  But she then realizes the benefits he has: “Yet ah!  I forget, thou art light as a breath;/That aerial form, which no atoms combine,/Might dizzily sport down the abyss of death,/Or tremble secure on the hazardous line” (29-32).  The mistress begins to see the advantages there are to being dead and all hope for an intact mental state is lost in the last stanza when she feels her soul beginning to mingle with his. 

Reading beneath the surface of the words, it is easy to see that the spirit is not just a supernatural entity in the poem, but the “embodiment” (in mist form) of death.  Pop cultural perceptions elucidate that death’s objective is to claim as many lives as it can, by any means necessary, and it is able to claim the mistress’ in clever fashion.  It lets her own mind make the decision to give up her life, but helps it along by tempting her with the proximity of her lost lover, guiding her to realize that she could join him and not worry about earthly troubles any longer, and then sealing the deal by convincing her of the spirit’s affection for her: “Lo! see thy dim arms are extending for me;” (37).  Death manipulates her feelings for her lover by puppeteering the spirit to reach for her.  Clearly, Dacre’s subtle personification of death appears alluring and inviting.  This begs the question, though, of whether readers should be scared of the power death can have or comforted into not fearing it.

Further evidence of Dacre’s use of death as a manipulator comes in her poem “Death and the Lady.”  In this poem, death is actually a character, Death, and has a conversation with the Lady, in which it tells her that she will soon join it on the other side.  The poem is a back-and-forth between Death and the Lady where she laments that her life will end in her prime and Death brings her to the realization that her life was nothing but misery and pain, and death would be an improvement. 

Death’s manipulation begins by claiming that taking her life would be doing her a favor: “What hast thou known but care and sorrow?/Thy lovers faithless all?/And if I spare thee till to-morrow/Some horrid ill may fall” (57-60).  When she continues to resist his temptations, though, he moves on from gentle persuasions to belittling her: “Thou griev’st to die, others grieve none,/Nor miss thee from the scene” (115-6).  It tells her that she is insignificant and since no one will miss her when she’s gone, she may as well leave with Death now.  From there, Death moves back toward the enticements of death, promising her a robe of blue vapors and the chance to feel her mother’s embrace again.  The Lady’s resistance slowly crumbles until it shatters completely in the final stanza: “Then rising from her silken bed,/ She gave her hand to Death;/His touch’d, benumb’d, her soul with dread,/And stopp’d her rising breath” (157-60).   

The manipulation by death that Dacre employs in her writings is far more obvious in this poem, where death is able to take on a form and a voice of its own.  The exploitation of the Lady’s feelings is much less subtle than that of the mistress’ was in the former poem.  Death plays on her life full of misfortune and her desire to see her mother again, very clear manipulation techniques.  Once again, though, the issue arises of whether death’s power of manipulation is meant to be frightening or whether the benefits it can offer outweigh its objects’ fear.  Either could be a possibility in both of Dacre’s poems, “The Mistress to the Spirit of her Lover” and “Death and the Lady.”

 So the question remains of Dacre’s intentions: Is she attempting to scare her readers with gothic poems that make death visible in people’s lives or is she attempting to convince them that there are actually upsides to death and they should accept it, as the women in her poems do? 

“Charlotte Dacre.”  Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.  20 May 2012.  Wikimedia Foundations, Inc.  25 May 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dacre

Dacre, Charlotte.  "The Mistress to the Spirit of her Lover."  Hours of Solitude: A collection of original poems, 2 vols.  London: Hughes and Ridgeway, 1805.

Dacre, Charlotte.  "Death and the Lady."  Hours of Solitude: A collection of original poems, 2 vols.  London: Hughes and Ridgeway, 1805.

Photo source: http://www.designyourway.net/teme/The_grim_reaper_by_Funerium.jpg

Societal Bait in Frankenstein's Framed Narrations

(http://comikaider.blogspot.com/2009/11/wang-of-frankenstein.html)

In representing Romantic irony, Shelley's major work harbors the same strength of purpose as Coleridge's tale told by the marinere.  The interlacing story telling of Frankenstein, controlled by multiple first person tellers, yields much more liberally to readerly dynamics than a single stream narrative.  Just as we observe the marinere from behind the wedding guest, we observe Dr Frankenstein from behind Walton, and more confidently place judgments upon them.  In a similar way, Shelley distances herself from the main discourse of the work that reveals both the purpose of creating the monster and also the characteristic behavior of the doctor.  By including the monster, a fictionalized creation framed by the creator’s character itself, Shelley emphasizes the importance of the interplay between the layers of the narrative. The monster not only represents the product of the doctor and the shadow of his maker’s flaws, but must be considered in accordance with the doctor’s narrative as well.  Through the birth of the monster Shelley plays a double commentary on societal invention and values of passion and beauty.  Shelley deliberately victimizes the monster within his narrative in order to comment on the societal judgment occurring throughout the whole narrative.  Shelley includes the framing narratives for the sake of the monster’s narrative.

Because the monster’s story is centralized, his serves as a pinnacle that cultivates the purpose of the other layers. The question we should ask is what does the monster’s values contribute, within the frame of the doctor’s values.  The monster’s narrative, which includes his pressure to reject himself, indulgence in intellectual pursuits, overpowering passion, is in dialogue with the doctor, who becomes sickly obsessive and irresponsible.

The ethics presented by Shelley are ones the readers are unprepared to accommodate. As a man’s creation, how might a reader judge the monster?  Shelley, in combination with centralizing the monster’s story, purposefully instructs this difficulty in order to give the monster freedom to judge the society he observes and refute any ethical judgment from the reader.  Because we are not meant to accuse the monster of his criminalities, we must focus instead of the monster’s placement in Frankenstein’s and Walton’s lives.

The monster, on his own accord, reveals the disgraceful value society upholds, while simultaneously demonstrating them.  Any ethical judgments upon the monster can only be refracted onto his creator and the people surrounding him.  The value of beauty shakes the entire narrative by society’s rejection of the monster on sight.  He learns this and enforces it by requesting an ugly duplicate of himself and accepting alienation.  As a new human—probably Shelley is stretching this in a parodic way—the monster is clean of imprints, therefore quick to learn to despise himself by the guidance of those around him. His looks are first and foremost, while violence is secondary to and effected by his ugly nature.

             The violence of the monster is related to the passion of his creator.  Both the monster and the doctor succumb to destructive passion, which is criticized by the Romantic Shelley.  Frankenstein’s monster acts as a bended mirror of himself.  As we attempt to judge the monster we in fact just the doctor.  Once again the framed narration works similarly as Coleridge; the doctor’s flaws are peeled open before an audience, Walton, who is at risk of committing the same destruction.  

"The Rime of the Ancient Marinere", S.T. Coleridge (1798)

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1823)

Selfishness and Death: All the Good Stuff in Byron and Clare

            The poems “Darkness” by Lord Byron and “An Invite, to Eternity” by John Clare each unravel a potential death – one of society, and the other, of a poet and his maiden. Each poem also develops a theme of choice, and how it can become selfish or self-centered. More specifically, the voice of “An Invite, to Eternity” asks for his maiden to join him in death, which can be viewed at one time as endearing or as irrational at another. “Darkness”, on the other hand, portrays a scenario in which men and women are self-motivated in their efforts to avoid death and its traps. This contrast between the two poems reveals different perceptions of human resolve in the acknowledgement of death and peril’s existence.

            Although fantastic descriptions and devastating trials appear again and again, the first line of “Darkness” notes that it “was not all a dream” (Byron l. 1). In effect, this provokes the reader to consume the poem as factual or, at least, probable. Similarly, John Clare writes in “An Invite, to Eternity” that the maiden and speaker will choose “At once to be and not to be” (Clare l. 21), thus discarding the Shakespearean query and terming it a conjunction. In both instances, death is made realistic in its existence, even if its features remain surreal. Consequently, the poems can become lenses into the human reaction to a real “death”.

            The speaker of “An Invite, to Eternity” may propose death to his maiden, but he does not imply the death of his ego. In what is a consensual pursuit of death, he ruminates on how the skies “around us lie” (l. 24) and as such, posits himself and the maiden in the center of it all. He suggests that sisters “know us not” (l. 16), again placing emphasis on them. Again, the poem itself acts as a person inviting someone else to death and places the human being as the controller. With this setting in mind, it is very interesting to dissect intention: is this a selfish manipulation of life, or is it a well-intentioned plea for a loved one? Rather than ask, “would thou go with me”, the speaker asks “wilt thou go with me,” (l. 1) as a sign that the poem is not simple a test, as in the situation of Abraham and God, and instead is a plea in the face of something imminent.

            Throughout the poem “Darkness”, monstrosity and decline are depicted vividly. Also depicted are the actions of people, whose hearts “were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light” (l. 9). This proposal of selfish people roaming the earth is juxtaposed with the decline of defined social roles and kingdoms and huts “burned for beacons” (l. 13). The only instance of selflessness comes in the role of a non-human – a dog. This inclusion may be deliberate, in order to show how humanity has turned against one another in its fight against darkness and death. Perhaps as a nod to how realistic the event is, not even the faithful dog survives. This fact complicates the notion of selflessness being the ultimate good, as it seems short-sighted for the dog in the end to think of another. Regardless, the plagues upon the dog and of humanity illustrate the power of death. For whatever reason, Byron couples this selfishness with the decline of social institutions and the fact that “the populous and the powerful was a lump” (l. 70). The selfish pursuits of man, then, are bleak and unruly.

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) by Salvador Dali

            In each poem, people confront death. Clare points to the “sad non-identity” of death, and Byron moreover mentions the world as “Seasonless… manless” (l. 71). The poems are similar in their advocacy for ego, with a lack of communal identity in “Darkness” and individual identity in “An Invite” seen as unfavorable. In my reading, though, the speaker of “An Invite” selfishly joins death and requests for his love to come along, while in “Darkness”, men “selfishly” fight death and look out for themselves. What is more interesting, in the end, is how one defines selfishness in the face of death. If acceptance and care for others is paramount, than the people of “Darkness” are wildly selfish and brutish. Yet, if those qualities are not, one could see why the faithful dog is foolish. Interestingly, if one puts a premium on care for others, the speaker of “An Invite” can either be read as a selfish promoter of death to a loved one, or as fool who is faithful to a lover to the point where it kills them both. 

Nature and the Ideal in "La Belle Dame sans Merci"

            Nature is a strong aspect of John Keat’s ballad “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (or “The Beautiful Woman without Mercy”). This isn’t surprising because nature can do many things within writing. At the time that he wrote this, it was often being used to create sublime images in order to affect the emotions and experiences of not only the characters within the narratives but also the people reading them. John Keats’s poem is no exception to this as nature works in a variety of ways throughout the piece.

 First, it allows the reader to place the characters in a specific setting because the narrator describes the nature that exists in the area where he meets the knight. We are first told, “The sedge is wither’d from the lake/and no birds sing” (Lines 3-4). This creates an image of a wasting lake side, making the location disheartening. In the next stanza, the narrator reveals that “The squirrel’s granary is full/And the harvest’s done” (Lines 7-8). While this tells us that perhaps this area was lively at one time, it also seems to suggest that winter, a cold and barren season, is upon them. Nature itself is used to reflect the emotions of the knight, who is “alone,” “haggard,” and “woe-begone.” In doing so, it also reinforces his depressive state. In addition, the lake, the squirrel, and the harvest hint at a better time. This creates a contrast between now and then, which begins to reveal the tensions between the real and the ideal (a tension that only increases throughout the ballad).

In the third stanza, Keats begins to use nature in a more directly metaphorical way in order to describe the knight’s physical features. More specifically, he uses flower imagery. One of which is the lily, which is often used as a symbol of death. In addition, the narrator mentions a “fading rose” that is withering in reference to the knight’s cheek. The fading rose shows deterioration in the knight’s life, reinforcing the idea of death and despair. Shifting from the tone, back to the idea of the real versus the ideal, the description of the rose increases the tension between the two. Because he uses words like “fading” and “withereth” to describe the rose, we are shown that he could be more perfect but that he has moved away from that ideal.

After this, the physical concept of nature begins to disappear. It is then replaced by another meaning of “nature”: the personality or disposition of the characters within the knight’s story about meeting the beautiful woman. John Keats takes this idea and uses it to divide the knight and the woman, the real and the ideal. The knight is a mortal man, who longs for the company of the woman. When he loses that company, the longing becomes stronger sending him into loneliness and depression. The woman therefore takes on the role of the ideal because she becomes the thing that is longed for. In addition, she is “full beautiful, a faery’s child” (Line 14). This line suggests that she is supernatural rather than a normal human being, showing that their nature is starkly different. He cannot keep her as his own for long because of the flaws in his own nature that caused him to desire something more than what is real and human. Their nature is further separated because he has such a strong desire for her, but she effortlessly leaves him and seemingly all of kings, princes, and warriors that had appeared to the knight in his dreams in the tenth stanza. The nature of his love is continuous and long-lasting whereas hers is short and fleeting.

When it is revealed to us why he is woe-begone, the references to the physical nature reappear. The knight describes the “cold hill side” and says that the loss of the woman “is why I sojourn here/Alone and palely loitering/Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake/And no bird sing” (Lines 45-48). His use of the phrase “this is why” combined with the word “though” tells us that if he had been in a different emotional state or had had a different experience, he might not be there because the sedge, the lake, and absence of birds are not ideal currently. It therefore only fits his current state of mind.

By connecting the two definitions of nature, Keats reveals why the physical nature has become such an integral part of storytelling, especially in the Gothic tradition where they often use it to create sublime images to affect the characters and readers: nature is a mirror image for our emotions and a representation of the difference between our ideals and realities. 

Keats, John. “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” The Longman Anthology of Gothic Verse. Ed.

Caroline Franklin. Harlow: Pearson, 2011. 492-494. Print.

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The Paradox of Beddoes “Last Man”

                It seems that there are three requirements that need to be met for a person to be considered the “last man”: they have to be the last person on Earth, be alive and be a man (or at least a human being). Interestingly, the “last man” Beddoes writes on ultimately fits none of those descriptions.

                To begin with, though the title of the work ostensibly labels the speaker as a “man”, the text of the poem seems to contradict that notion. To begin with, Beddoes opens the poem with the following lines: “By heaven and hell, and all the fools between them, /I will not die, nor sleep, nor wink my eyes,/ But think myself into a god...” (Beddoes, 1-3). With these three lines, the speaker creates a divide between himself and all other humans. First of all, the speaker says that he will accomplish his goals “By heaven and hell, and all the fools between them”. Presumably, the “fools between them” are the inhabitants of Earth – humans. Yet, the speaker does include himself in this group of “fools”. Furthermore, he goes on to say that he “will not die, nor sleep, nor wink my eyes, but think myself into a god”. The speaker conceives himself as able to turn into a god by forsaking death and sleep – the two actions that all humans must share. Beddoes makes this point even more clear by ending the poem, “…Fear me now; / I am a devil, not a human soul –“(Beddoes, 12-13). The speaker has completed the journey and given up his humanity – thus making it impossible for him to be the “last man”.

                Besides being human, one would assume that any “last man” of Earth would need to be alive to carry the moniker. Yet Beddoes seems to leave the speaker’s mortal condition rather ambiguous in the poem, perhaps even indicating that the speaker is already dead when he begins his journey to dethrone Death. To begin with, the speaker’s pledge to “not die, nor sleep” until he reaches his goal seems to indicate that he cannot die or sleep. There is only way that a person cannot die or sleep: if they are already dead. The speaker could simply be pledging what he cannot actually accomplish, but, if one assumes the speaker’s pledges are given with conviction, then the speaker must be dead (or, as pointed out earlier, at least not human). Beddoes further indicates that the speaker has shuffled off the mortal coil when he writes, “…Or I will burst / Damnation's iron egg, my tomb, and come /Half damned, ere they make lightning of my soul,” (Beddoes, 6-8). The speaker seems to heavily imply that he is beginning his journey in his “iron egg”: a tomb. One could argue that the tomb the speaker speaks of his simply metaphorical. However, the fact that he is coming “half damned, ere they make lightning of my soul” seems to imply that he has already died and must accomplish his goal of slaying death before whoever “they” are (re)capture his soul. If the speaker had to escape from damnation to dethrone death, the implication is that he is already dead – preventing him from being the “last man” in any traditional sense.

                Finally, any “last man” must be the last (or think they are) person on Earth. Beddoes poem seems to imply that the speaker is not, in fact, the last person on Earth. The speaker establishes his ultimate goal thusly: “I'll dethrone / The empty skeleton, and be thy death,” (Beddoes, 10-11). The very act of becoming Death implies that there are still souls for Death to take. Though one could make the argument that the speaker simply wishes for a pyrrhic victory in which death is vanquished but nothing else is accomplished, the speaker refutes this position by commanding his audience to “fear me now”. In order for one acting as Death to inspire fear, there must be mortals that fear Death. If there are other mortals remaining, then the speaker cannot be the “last man”.

                By examining how the speaker defines himself as ultimately not a human, not alive, and not the last person on Earth, one can come to the conclusion that the speaker Beddoes labels as the “last man” is paradoxically neither the “last” nor a “man”. Beddoes, then, does not create a typical apocalypse or “last man” narrative. Yet, he still labels it as such, indicating that he feels the poem still fits within the typical apocalyptic genre of “last man” poetry. Ultimately, the “last man” Beddoes presents seems to have one goal: destroying and taking over the mantle of Death. Perhaps the world Beddoes presents is not ending in the traditional sense, but the person he defines as the “last man” is voluntarily leaving it. It seems to me that Beddoes wants to imply that the world has come to an end by this “last man” choosing to leave it and become a “devil”. It is this loss of humanity and reason and the abandonment of all pursuits non-combative that signals the end of the world for Beddoes, not a simple depletion of numbers.

               

               

Death of Innocence and the Picturesque in Frankenstein

            Frankenstein serves as a warning to any who read it about unshackled passion and drive to the point where it destroys oneself.  In the novel, Frankenstein’s drive to create a living being starts a spiral that ends up destroying himself, his family, and his Creature.  However, as much as it is a warning, it is also a deep tragedy that we must look upon today as a loss of innocence and love of the picturesque and beautiful, two things that can be attributed to being human.  As Frankenstein loses more and more of his loved ones through the novel, he starts to become more and more empty inside and ends up becoming a shell of a man by the end with only one driving goal left in his life: to kill the Creature.  While not without blame in his downfall, this loss of innocence goes beyond the usual that is seen in Gothic Romantic novels and his inevitable tragedy is still worth lamenting over.  At the same time however, the Creature also suffers a similar loss of innocence and appreciation for the picturesque and beautiful.  These two falls parallel each other and offer a sense of tragedy to the lives of both the main characters in the novel. 

            We can trace Frankenstein’s fall of innocence back to his early days when he discovered outdated yet intriguing scientific theories.  These laid a foundation of scientific intrigue that alone were mostly harmless but eventually grew with his learning in the modern sciences into an almost religious fervor to create life from death.  This is the beginning of his fall from innocence and grace that was present all throughout his childhood.  He spent two years working on bringing the Creature to life and neglected his own health, being shut up in his room away from the world.  While being nursed back to health after the Creature came to life, it appears that everything would return to normal, but that was not the case.  The Creature would not allow it, and as his family and friends were picked off one by one, Frankenstein suffers mental breakdowns and detachments from the world around him.  His innocence is more than lost; it is shattered without hope of repair.

            The Creature too has his own story of the loss of innocence.  In his case however, it is not solely because of Frankenstein but because of a variety of other people as well.  When the Creature is first introduced, all it knows is the beauty of the world around it.  As it learns language through the De Laceys, he grows attached to them and hopes to make his presence known.  All he wants is companionship since humans find his sight repulsive, but when he makes himself known to the De Laceys he is run off and they move away once they get sight of him.  Eventually he comes across William, Frankenstein’s younger brother, and ends up killing him, thus starting the chain of events that would cause the Creature to decimate Frankenstein’s family.  However, the Creature no longer has the innocence of the world that he was born with and only lost it because of the harshness of humanity. 

Frankenstein is telling his story to Walton so that he may kill off the Creature if he himself should die, but as readers there is no doubt that it is a warning.  We can see shades of this story in contemporary ones, notably in the book and novel Jurassic Park.  It deals with going too far with science and having to face the consequences, in many cases it is death or being scarred for life from the experience.  We must heed the warning of Frankenstein, or else we will suffer a similar fate of Frankenstein and his Creature.  Our lives are not worth giving up in an unrelenting drive towards something.  All we will leave if that is the case is destruction in our wake.   

Terminal Lastness

                      Photo Courtesy of:http://3.bp.blogspot.com/

Well, in light of my recent presentation, I figured I would write my blog about the concept of “lastness,” and what it means to be “the last man.” In Lovell Beddoes’s version of “The Last Man,” he describes the narrator being stuck in what I would call purgatory, a place between heaven and hell where one religiously gets situated due to their inability to make penance on their transgressions. In pursuit of the title of “the last man,” the narrator attempts to outwit death, which Lovell Beddoes makes apparent through his personification of death in lines such as, “ old Death/ Shall dream he has slain me, and I’ll creep behind him,/ Thrust off the bony tyrant from his throne/ And beat him into dust.” By personifying death, Lovell Beddoes wants readers to understand the lengths at which the narrator will go to obtain the title of the last man, but in his avid pursuit of “lastness” he commits the sin of suicide, and only becomes the last man as the reincarnate of the devil. 

In contrast to Lovell Beddoes’s version, Thomas Campbell’s version of “The Last Man” depicts the narrator as the last remaining person on earth after an apocalyptic event, and instead of personifying death; Campbell personifies nature especially the sun to characterize the narrator as a religious spirit. The narrator speaks to the sun, or the “son” of Christ exclaiming that “ALL worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself must die, /Before this mortal shall assume/ Its immortality!” This quote speaks to the religious implications of the poem, in accordance with religious scripture, the son of Christ must die in order for everyone to ascend into heaven and share in immortal life after death. The narrator stands “prophet-like, that lone one stood/With dauntless words and high” saying to the sun “We are twins in death, proud Sun, / Thy face is cold, thy race is run,/ Tis Mercy bids thee go./ For thou ten thousand thousand years/ Hast seen the tide of human tears,/That shall no longer flow.” The narrator’s profession to the sun speaks to the pride and self-fulfillment he feels from outlasting the rest of his race, thus building up the glory and/or entitlement that comes from being the last of something.

Lastly, Thomas Hood’s version of “The Last Man” discredits and/or “spoofs” the aforementioned poems idea of the last man and lastness in general. The poem depicts a hangman and a peasant who are the two sole surivors of yet another apocalyptic event. In dire need to be “the last man” the hangman hangs the peasant, but instead of finding happiness and eternal glory from being the last man standing, the hangman finds himself lonely and racked with guilt. The narrator, suffering from “terminal lastness,” discredits the other two poets and the positive connotation they associate with the last man, instead through the suffering of the narrator in Hood’s poem, one can now see the ridiculousness surrounding the idea of lastness and can find humor in the lengths the aforementioned narrators would go to assume this position. If you’re the last person, there’s no one left to even award you recognition and/or acknowledgement for your ability to outlast everyone else. Also, just because something, or someone is last doesn’t make them the best. By unearthing the humor and.or ridiculousness surrounding the idea of “lastness” Thomas Hood works to disparage a literary/poetic theme that has continued to make headway even in contemporary times, such as in the 2007 feature film, “I Am Legend,” starring Will Smith.  This movie depicts Smith as legendary for being the last remaining survivor of yet another apocalyptic and cataclysmic event. What is our society’s obsession with “lastness”? And, why do we continue to perpetuate this idea by attributing glory and eternal pride to those who manage to outlast others?