Life and Death in Archibald MacLeish’s Poem The End Of The World
The theme in “The End Of The World” is that life is short but full of surprises and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Take life for what it is worth, because death may come at any moment and is the exact opposite feeling of life. It’s numbing to the senses and it represents not only the death of your being but also the death of your life-long dreams and aspirations. MacLeish expresses his views on life and death by writing the poem in two separate stanzas. He then writes about the two experiences as though they are polar opposites.
The concept of “life” is given specific, vivid details with queer descriptions of such things as an “armless ambidextrian” (which is also ironic because someone with no arms cannot possibly be ambidextrous.) MacLeish wants to convey how odd but pleasing life can be, and that even when weird things happen, to go with the flow. In the selection of detail for “death”, MacLeish uses the words “there” and “nothing” over and over to show how monotonous the process of death may be.
MacLeish uses a great deal of imagery to describe his attitude of life and death. The whimsical characteristics of a Vasserot and a lion named Ralph in the first stanza are replaced by “white faces and dazed eyes” in the second stanza. Archibald also writes that the sky is a “starless dark” hover which allows him to express how empty death might possibly feel. By leaving the sky starless, MacLeish can express his feelings towards a verdictless life. When you die, MacLeish believes that the “lights in your life”, metaphorically the goals and desires, fade away into the nothingness of your own death.
He writes of circus-like people and animals in the first stanza to make light of the seriousness of life. MacLeish wants his readers to realize that although you should live your life to its fullest potential, you shouldn’t take it too seriously either. Archibald creates the atmosphere of utter somberness in the second stanza to show that death is final. It’s terminal. When you look up to see that your sky has become a starless dark of nothingness, there is nothing you can do to make your life look more glorified than it was.
This poem was written to illustrate the fact that every good thing comes to an end, even your own life. If you live as though you’re invincible and have all the time in the world, death will hit you with its terminal force. MacLeish wanted to create a threshold between life and death that every body must cross, but demonstrate that you can’t choose when you cross that threshold; it’s chosen for you (in most cases.)
