An Analysis of On the Other Hand :: On the Other Hand Essays

An Analysis of On the other(a) Hand   On the early(a) Hand, what is on the other progress to? Rachel Hadas tells round the backing, the deathly and shows the ref the other font of usual thoughts about the dead and living. She lists the faults of the living and the virtues of the dead, in order to explain her number 1 statement, it is no wonder why we love the dead. Yet, then turns everything around once more in the last statement of this free verse poem. Rachel Hadas poem, On the Other Hand clearly depicts the many differences of the brittle, easily wounded living and the patient, smooth dead. In the first stanza of the poem, the dead be said to be admire in a way because of all the flaws that the living inhibit. The living be said to be ungrateful, obsessive and needy, greedy, and vain.  This approach of describing the living lets the reader see a side of life that he may not have noticed before. The living usually have certain connotations with the honou rable and the joys of life however, On the Other Hand shows the other side, the negatives of the living.  The living are easily hurt and non-virtues. The way the word, opacity, is used makes the reader think of the living to be cold-hearted, incapable of penetration. Hadas is obviously stating that the dead are better in comparison to the living because of the numerous imperfections of the living.   In the second stanza, Rachel Hadas, goes on to express her point of the dead deserving more praise than the living by the listing of the virtues that the dead posses. While the living are needy and greedy, the dead are better at resisting wishes. Hadas also describes the dead to be mirthfully, or carefree, while the living do not have that luxury. A great amount of comparisons between the living and the dead is being punctuate in the second stanza of this thought-provoking poem. Such as the dead to be deliberate, and the living being said to be impulsive. The first two stanza s of Hadass poem truly give the title its meaning. The reader is pressure to see the other side of the usual thoughts of the living and dead. Hadas is in fact showing the reader the other hand, or other side of the situation.  She continues this approach in the first part of the third stanza telling of the capacity that the dead have to glide across the hours with time being no boundary to them.