Topic > Analysis of the narrators in Sonnet To succeed a person must have, as Richard Wilbur describes, rational and non-rational capabilities. Each work depicts a man distraught due to the detachment between the rational and non-rational components of his mind. The non-rational element manifests itself in complete isolation from society and intense suffering. The narrator is obsessed with the non-rational manifestation and cannot free himself from his mind, struggling in vain to understand it better. and "Usher", the narrator's misunderstanding of his non-rational side leads to the destruction of that part of his mind. The narrator continues to live, although not as a complete person. Say no to plagiarism custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay"Sonnet X" shares many similarities with Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." As in "Sonnet X", Poe delves into the human mind to investigate its rational and non-rational components. In both stories, the narrator projects a character who is a figment of his imagination to represent his non-rational side. In both works, this projection occurs during the rational character's midlife crisis, thus suggesting that the awareness of the passage of time influences the characters in such a way that they begin to neglect their non-rational identities. Because they are unable to interpret their non-rational counterparts correctly, both rational characters reject them, causing this piece of their identity to die. “Sonnet X” is told through the perspective of a narrator observing the life of an inmate. The narrator describes a man who has completely isolated himself in his own world, closed off from society in an “upper house”. This man's life is miserable and desolate; he is trapped inside, "in a dark house". The narrator observes the man's isolation and explains that his life has been full of hardship: "Terror and anguish were his lot to drink." The secluded man intrigues the narrator, who empathizes with the loner and often thinks of him; she quickly becomes infatuated with the idea of him and says "I can't get rid of the thought or hold on to it." It is implied that the narrator is not directly familiar with the man, does not know much about him, and can only "vaguely dream only of that man", which in turn implies that the two men have little to no relationship and the narrator is observing from afar. The narrator dreams of the man in an attempt to understand him, but still cannot understand the miserable life he leads; in fact, the mere thought scares him. Symbolically, the withdrawn man is a projection of the narrator's mind. The two characters are components of the same person, one represents the rational part and the other the non-rational part. The narrator, observing and trying to understand man, represents the rational man who observes detached from society and living alone in a world characterized by suffering, represents the irrational. The narrator, by focusing on this man, is trying to understand the non-rational aspect of himself. Before now, he has neglected this aspect of his being all his life, as the lines again suggest: "His steps reached the brink of ripe manhood; Terror and anguish were his lot to drink. At this point of the his life, the narrator rediscovers the non-rational part of himself, but is unable to understand it and is confused and unnerved by how neglected the non-rational aspect has become. As time passes and the man grows older, the rational narrator continues to misunderstand its non-rational projection.
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