In Robert Pack's, "To an Empty Page," the speaker discusses death and its consequences regarding relief to show the author's purpose as a feeling of loneliness and depression. He does this with the use of an echo sonnet form, foreshadowing within the title, and through the use of emotion evoking pathos.
Pack's use of a sonnet for reveals his feelings and emotions toward love, which sonnets are normally about. Readers can feel the raw emotion that Pack reveals in his discussion regarding the speakers possible death and loss of love, thereafter. In addition, the fact that he wrote an echo sonnet aids in the author’s purpose because it allows the reader to be aware of the words meant to be emphasized. Along with its emphasis, the echo, in some cases, seems to answer a rhetorical question made by the speaker. For example, “what’s the end of my life’s long disease? Ease,” (line 7). Within this quote, the speaker is relaying his belief that the only way to relieve himself of life’s burdens is through death. Pack exposes his true feelings of loneliness, which in sonnet form allows readers to sense his passion.
The title, "To an Empty Page," Pack eludes that his poem is dark and filled with sadness. A breakdown of the title shows that Pack's diction with using, "To," was as if the speaker was sending his sonnet to somebody; as if he were talking to an imaginary listener. But contrast to that idea, he is sending his sonnet to, "an Empty Page," meaning nobody. These words have a negative connotation and sets the mood of the poem. This foreshadowing allows readers the knowledge that this is not a typical sappy-love sonnet as Shakespeare's wrote. The speaker displays the title as his own thoughts; he believes no one will hear his cry for help. He believes he is alone. These thoughts of death, although unknown by the title alone, seem fitting with the poems overall theme