Phrases such as "direct and terrible," "delicious death," "her red umbrella, filtering the light, rouges her face with a bloody glow," and "in harmony, she moves along, glad to be alive, smiling an empty smile," all serve to support the meaning and mood of this poem as slightly sour, positioning "Beautiful Dorothea" in a dream where these words would make sense and come together. The poet sets the scene by invoking the sense that everyone but the speaker, the reader, and Dorothea are awake to witness the action: "the stupefied world collapses into a siesta, a sort of delicious death where the...

• Word Count: 2157
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Graduate

Indeed, when the voice is described a final time two pages later, it remains "a strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance" (97)-the descriptions from before recycled to exacerbate our frustration and keep us in darkness; we never do discern the source of the voice or its words throughout the course of the novel. ... Notably, his trigger words center mainly on ghosts, witchcraft and death; however, it rapidly becomes difficult to discern whether such fantastic clues are valid foreshadowing or merely red herrings. ... However, later in the...

• Word Count: 1547
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate