The rigid four-stanza structure of the poem also suggests the repetitious, monotonous ticking of a clock that can never be stopped. The form seems to constrict the speaker, as perhaps memories of the past relentlessly impose upon his life. The poem seems to be in the form of a funeral elegy, deliberately chosen by Auden to force us to take a more somber perspective and sympathize with the speaker. The strong rhyming couplet scheme exemplifies the almost hypnotic, rhythmic droning the speaker can never escape, or ironically, perhaps only through death.
The overall tone of the poem is utterly despairing and weary of life. In the first stanza, the tone is melancholic and the speaker seems somewhat lost and lonely as he cuts off all sounds and means of communication: “cut off the telephone.” Throughout the second stanza the speaker appears to become more desperate as the hyperbolic demands continue, yet we still hear the weariness and apparent lack of concern through the repetition of passive verbs such as “let.” During the third verse the tone becomes more frantic as the speaker seems frightened, highlighted through the repetition of “my, my, my,” and we are forced to speed up then stop suddenly: “I was wrong.” The tone shifts again in the fourth stanza back to melancholic, perhaps mirroring the speaker’s thoughts circling endlessly round and round his head. There is a feel of anger established early; perhaps the speaker cannot accept that “death did not stop” for his lover. Throughout the poem the tone seems somewhat arrogant as the speaker utters God-like commands and demands the whole world ‘stop,’ yet it becomes clear that this is due to the speaker’s lack of care as death and life merge, chillingly, into sameness.
The utterly bleak, dark and foreboding atmosphere is created through Auden’s use of complementary imagery patterns. A haunting repetition of death imagery: “bring out the coffin, let the mourners come,” makes the reader shiver and we feel the ominous suffocation and entrapment even in “black cotton gloves.” Light and happiness, embodied in the sun and moon, are constantly being “dismantled” and “packed up;” they too have no purpose. With this goes the fleeting sense of freedom and spontaneity present in nature imagery, as the environment’s delicate systems are destroyed: “pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.” Music imagery and the ‘silencing’ of all noise are also central to the hopeless despair of the speaker. Auden designs these imagery patterns to leave us with the image of a grey, hopeless world, emptied of love and passion.
Auden uses further literary features to enhance the central concern of the poem. Capital letters are used in the second stanza (“He Is Dead”) to elevate his importance, ironically, this is how one would announce the death of Christ, not an ordinary person. Onomatopoeia are also employed to exemplify the tiresome sounds of the world continuing without the speaker: “aeroplanes circle moaning overhead.” Auden also employs repetition of words to mirror the “muffled drumming” in the psyche of the speaker: the repetition of “my, my, my” demonstrates his devotion to his lost lover. This is also highlighted in the use of geographic imagery- “he was my North, my South, my East and West” suggests his life now has no direction, he is condemned to a meaningless existence- his “future is mapped out for him.”
Verbs in this poem essentially betray the speaker’s feelings and expose the lack of purpose in life. In the first stanza, (“stop, cut off, prevent, silence”) the speaker seems to be despondent and the negative ‘command’ words used give a dark, foreboding mood. The speaker then seems to lose any last trace of concern he had, apparent through the repetition of “let.” He appears to be tired with the everyday functions of life- everything and anything bleed into nothingness. In the last verse the verbs continue to infuse an ominous, somewhat angry feel: “Put out… pack up…. dismantle… pour away.” We are left feeling as totally exhausted and heartbroken as the speaker, and we are manipulated into believing that “nothing can ever come to any good,” and a final realisation that indeed:
“Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”