An elegy called “Bells for Whiteside’s Daughter” by John Crowe Ransom depicts speakers’ feelings displayed in the poem through formal elements of literary devices. In this poem the author uses diction, imagery and juxtaposition to convey the mourning communities’ feelings of shock and denial held in the funeral of John Whiteside’s daughter, the community never truly acknowledges the young girl’s death; as the unexpected death of a young energetic child is hard to accept within a tight community. One technique the author uses to convey meaning is through diction, as he uses certain phrases and arrangements to show that the community never directly recognized the young girls death by using euphemisms that have double meanings. The speakers used the expression “brown study” to indirectly …show more content…
Brown study is an expression used to describe someone who is in a state of deep thought or holding a gloomy composure, it’s not a phrase commonly used to describe someone’s passing. With that, a better phrase to truly acknowledge an individual's passing would be “passed away” rather than their accepted phrase. In lines three and nineteen, the speakers used the phrase “brown study” as a euphemism for her current state, “To say we are vexed at her brown study” (Line 19). The mourners were vexed, as in annoyed and confused, despite the young girl being in a coffin. In line nineteen, it’s clear that the young girl had passed, however the community still cannot grasp her passing, as they halt in a distance, utterly irritated for in their minds they strongly believe she cannot be in this state, for she was young and lively. The community is completely dumbfounded, as they rely on this loose