Raechel Huizinga
Mr. Dempsey
ENG 2D
April 4, 2014
The Quiet Door
One of the hardest tasks to accomplish in life is obtaining a sense of peace. In a disordered world that circles with fear and confusion, it is difficult to find. The concept faced and feared by all is the idea of death. It is not the act of dying that humankind desires to avoid, but the unknown beyond it. It is obvious through culture how the world fears death; movies, literature, and general behavior prove it. However, there are few who contradict the idea that death is dark and forbidding. In a poem called ‘Death is a Door,’ the author, Nancy Byrd Turner, writes, “Death is only a quiet door / in an old wall” (11-12). Some believe that death can be approached peacefully, rather than unwillingly. In the poem ‘Let Evening Come,’ Jane Kenyon uses various poetic devices, such as imagery, repetition, and symbolism, to create a peaceful mood. The peace the reader feels while reading the poem is the peace that can be adopted when crossing the threshold into death.
Imagery is one of the most important literary devices a writer could use. Imagery allows the reader to become a part of the story and to interact with characters. Without imagery, there is no picture or setting, only empty words and actions that cannot be understood. The mood of a piece of writing can be created using imagery. In ‘Let Evening Come,’ Kenyon instills a peaceful mood by creating peaceful, comforting images in the reader’s mind. “Let the cricket take up chafing” (5), paints the image of crickets quietly gathering beneath the purple twilight to begin their night-song. In reading, “…as a woman takes up her needles / and her yarn” (6-7), one can almost hear the soft click-clack of the needles and the creak of a rocking chair, the wind purring among the sleeping trees outside. These images offer the reader a lulling sense of peace and familiarity.
Repetition is commonly used to spotlight a main idea the author wants to be realized. Mood is created depending on the meaning behind the subject of the repetition. In ‘Let Evening Come,’ the word let is constantly repeated. In fact, it is used twelve times in the relatively short poem. Kenyon, using repetition, implicates the idea of the peace of allowance. Things will happen that cannot be stopped. A man can attempt to hinder them, but in the process he will only create more pain and uncertainty. To stop fighting inevitable things is a wondrous experience, and it invokes a strange calm: peace. In ‘Let Evening Come,’ Kenyon writes, “Let it come, as it will, and don’t / be afraid” (18-19). One cannot stop the world from turning; night will come. The opposite of peace is fear. Fear consumes and destroys, but at the end of the struggle, peace is the light that accompanies one into the darkness.
Symbolism is the device that creates the ‘deeper meaning’ behind a seemingly uncomplicated and simple piece of writing. Once the symbolism is unveiled, the mood of the piece becomes more developed and appreciated. In ‘Let Evening Come,’ Kenyon is not writing about afternoon, evening, and night, but about life and death and the twilit time in between. Day symbolizes life, and night death, but in this poem Kenyon focuses on dusk; the bridge that joins them. In her poem, Kenyon does not mean for that bridge to be an ominous crossing, fraught with shadows and terrors, but more of a peaceful amble into dreams and star land. In her poem, Kenyon writes, “Let the wind die down” (12). This line suggests that the relentless chaos and rush of life should be decreasing to a quiet stillness, and that burdens and trials should be crumbling into dust from weary shoulders. ‘Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass,’ suggests death ought to come after a long life of work and hardship. One cannot complete every task and follow every whim, and eventually the ‘dew collects’ and the world forgets, but the hoe will be taken up by someone else in the morning, so there is no worry as to what will happen after evening comes. Kenyon’s statement is that entering into death is to be done with a peaceful attitude, not a resistant one, which reflects the mood of the poem.
‘Let Evening Come’ captures a sense of peace that can be applied to all situations in life. The mood Kenyon creates is the equivalent to don’t worry. Anguish comes hand-in-hand with comfort, and growing old is a gift. Culture screams to stay young, to avoid death, but authors like Kenyon and Turner reveal that death is not something to be feared, and that growing old is a privilege, so long as one works hard and loves. Only then can death be approached with the mood of peace created in ‘Let Evening Come.’