Analysis of Thanatopsis

Thanatopsis is a very difficult poem to simply think about in a literal sense because it uses a lot of symbolism that makes you want to look deeper. However, here is what I think the literal meaning of the poem is. It starts off by talking about how nature can take different forms depending on what you need from it at the time. When you’re happy it has a happy side, but when you’re sad it has a soothing side to make you feel better. It then goes on to tell you that when you start to think about death you should go out into nature and you will hear its voice coming to you from all around. Then, soon after, you will die and be joined to nature. You will
literally mix back into the elements of the earth and be a part of it. It then goes on to talk about how the whole world is just one giant tomb for all of the people who have come before us and died. All of the vast numbers of people in the world are nothing compared to the people who are laid to rest beneath it. Everywhere you go, even if you are alone among the living, you are still among the dead because they rule everywhere. And when you die it doesn’t matter if nobody even notices you’re gone because everybody has the same fate in the end. Even if the people who
are happy go on being happy and the people who are sad go on being said, they’re still all going to meet the same end eventually. The people who are alive now will eventually be buried and the ones who bury them will eventually be buried too. So live in a way that when you end up getting taken to the land of death you will go like peacefully and not like a prisoner being taken to their doom.

The term couch is used a few times throughout the poem as a metaphor for a grave or a
final resting place. In the last stanza they also used a prisoner dragged to a dungeon as a metaphor for a person being dragged to their grave unwillingly. There is also an allusion to mythology and the underworld in the way that they talk about where you go after death. They talk about the way that the dead rule there and you get dragged there when you are dead. I believe this goes along with Greek mythology and the idea the afterlife taking place in an actual world where all of the dead go.

The true meaning and point of this poem is that no matter who you are and no matter
what you have or don’t have in this life, we all end up in the same place. We are all going to die eventually and nothing else is going to matter. So the important thing is that we live every day in a way that when it comes our time to die we will be able to go into the light without any regrets at all. The author is trying to tell you to be one with nature and don’t let the thoughts of death that
it can bring up at times stop you from enjoying it while you can. One day you won’t have it anymore, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

Works Cited

Bryant, William Cullen. "Thanatopsis." Poetry Archive | Poems. Web. 28 Oct. 2010. .