[0:01]Hello everyone. The following presentation is on the poem The Shipwreck by Emily Dickinson. This poem forms part of the Grade 12 English home language syllabus from 2023 and the next few years.
[0:17]Let us take a look at some background to Emily Dickinson. She was born in 1830 and she died in 1886. Emily Dickinson was an American poet and she is still regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. She was born in Massachusetts, and she spent most of her childhood and adult life in isolation. She was considered quite eccentric and unconventional by her community. Dickinson never married and most of her friendships were entirely through correspondence, which means she would communicate with friends and family through writing letters and not face-to-face.
[1:05]Let us read through the poem. Glee! The great storm is over! Four have recovered the land- forty gone down together Into the boiling sand. Ring for the scant salvation! Toll, for the bonnie souls, - Neighbour and friend and bridegroom, Spinning upon the shoals! How they will tell the shipwreck When winter shakes the door, Till the children ask, 'But the forty? Did they come back no more? Then a silence suffuses the story, And a softness the teller's eye, And the children no further question, And only the waves reply. The following is a summary of the poem. The poem highlights the impact of a shipwreck on a community. In the beginning of the poem, the community feels joy and relief because the storm that caused the shipwreck is over and four people survived. However, the focus soon moves to the forty other people who died.
[2:14]A bell is rung to celebrate the survivors, but a bell also tolls to mourn those who did not survive. The poem illustrates how adults in the community tell the children the story about the shipwreck during winter. When the children ask about the forty who died, the adults become quiet and saddened. The poem ends on a sad, reflection, showing how people deal with a complicated mixture of joy and grief in response to a tragic event.
[2:51]Line one states, Glee! The great storm is over! The word Glee means absolute happiness. This word creates a tone or a feeling of relief, joy and celebration. However, there is irony here because people are happy that the storm is over, but this very storm caused the death of 40 people. Line two states that four have recovered the land. This simply means that four people have reached the safety of the shore. Despite the four who have survived, line three establishes that forty people have gone down together. We have a euphemism here, because to say that 40 people have gone down together is a lighter way of stating that 40 people drowned and were pulled down to the bottom of the ocean.
[3:51]These 40 people were pulled down into the boiling sand. This does not refer to the temperature of the sand.
[4:00]But picture in your mind how water churns when it is boiling. Line four refers to the rough waves and how the churning of the water causes the sand on the ocean floor to move violently, emphasizing the strength and the violence of the storm.
[4:23]Line five says, Ring for the scant salvation. The word Ring is an instruction to ring a bell in celebration for the scant, the limited or the very few people who have received salvation. In other words, those few people who survived the shipwreck, who were saved by God's grace. In line six, there is an instruction to toll a bell. This means to ring a funeral bell to signify a time of mourning. The bell will be rung for the bonnie souls. The word bonnie means beautiful. In this context, it would refer to the beautiful beloved people who lost their lives in the shipwreck. Note the use of the dash. This punctuation mark indicates that additional information about the beloved souls that have been lost will follow.
[5:27]This additional information is presented in line seven, in which we learn that the people who died in the shipwreck were someone's neighbor and friend and bridegroom. These were not just random people or people unaccounted for. Death has taken people who are dear to someone. This tragically includes someone's neighbor and someone's friend, but also a bridegroom who might have just been starting married life. In line eight, we are given some detail as to how these 40 people drowned. The word spinning suggests that during the storm and the shipwreck, their bodies were being thrown around uncontrollably by the ocean's waves. The phrase upon the shoals sheds some light on the tragedy. I'm sure in your mind you imagined this shipwreck to have happened in the middle of the deep ocean. However, the irony here is that these people did not drown in deep water, but tragically in the shallow waters close to the shore. The storm and violent waves meant that they were unable to swim or move to safety.
[6:51]Line nine states, how they will tell the shipwreck, which refers to the question, how will the tragic story of the shipwreck be told in time to come? How will this story be told particularly when winter shakes the door? This line, line 10, can be interpreted in two ways. Literally, how will this story be told when the cold and windy winter season outside that rattles the door to homes? Figuratively, it can be said that because winter is a cold and somber season, it can be likened to grief that shakes the doors in the hearts of those who have lost their loved ones in the shipwreck tragedy. Note that in line 11, it is only till the children ask about the shipwreck accident that people speak about the tragedy. It's as if no one speaks of the tragedy. Children are known to have no inhibitions when it comes to their curiosity. The question of what happened to those who didn't survive is left to the innocent questioning of the children. The children ask in line 12, did they come back no more?
[8:21]This rhetorical question addresses the idea of salvation. Will the forty who died receive forgiveness and freedom from all their sins? The rhetorical question also brings about the idea of mortality. The question the children ask makes the adults telling the story reflect on life and what might happen after we die. Line 13 states, then a silence suffuses the story. The word suffuses means to spread through or to fill. In other words, a silence fills the story of the shipwreck. The questions asked by the children are followed by silence because the questions can't be answered and the story being told comes to a stop. Followed by the silence, a softness the teller's eye. This line suggests that the narrator of the story perhaps becomes teary as he/she feels the grief and sadness of the story of the shipwreck being told. In line 15, the children ask no further questions. This can be interpreted as perhaps the children can sense that the narrator of the story cannot really answer their questions about mortality and the afterlife. And also perhaps because the sadness of the whole situation causes them to stop asking any more questions.
[10:00]The last line of the poem states that the only response to the children's question is the reply from the ocean's waves. This last line can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the silence of the narrator and the children is emphasized as there are no other words of comfort or explanation to offer. In this interpretation, the waves are personified as being able to reply. However, they reply with silence and the mystery of death remains in the silence.
[10:41]A very literal interpretation is that in the silence between the narrator and the children, the waves can be heard crashing in the distance from where they are situated. Let us consider the form and structure of this poem. This poem is comprised of 16 lines. There are four stanzas with four lines in each stanza. There is a regular rhyme scheme following the pattern of ABCB, DEFE, GHIH, JKLK. Stanza one highlights the positive news about the four people who survived the tragedy of the shipwreck. Stanzas two, three and four highlight the sadness and grief about the forty people who died and triggers a reflection about life, death and the potentiality of salvation. The tone of the poem, The Shipwreck, is sombre and reflective. The speaker conveys a sense of tragedy and loss with feelings of hopelessness, devastation, grief and sadness. The themes include loss, grief, tragedy, mortality and salvation. Thank you for watching this presentation on the poem The Shipwreck by Emily Dickinson. Keep your eye out for the last poem, Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas, that forms part of the Grade 12 English Home Language poetry syllabus.
