i'll refrain from plot summary-- if you look down a couple of posts, devon does a good job.
the little girl does say, concerning Jane's death, that ". . .God released her of her pain. . ." so, it's clear that the girl has some idea of God and God's relationship to death in a presumably christian framework. but the little girl seems to perform pagan-like rituals upon the grave: the dancing, the singing. if these were contemporary customs, i'd be likely to place the society much closer to beowulf then to late 1700's england. also, the "we are seven" repetition at the end becomes chant-like, again affecting a shade of paganism.
and of course we have the disagreement between the narrator and the little girl. the opening, asking what could she possibly know of death, and the closing, with the realization of futility in trying to convince the girl. the closing isn't really an affirmation or negation of the opening. what it does, though, is make us realize that opening question which, at the time of reading, seemed rhetorical, appears to be, in fact, an honest question. and the verb "should" in the opening stanza kind of on a whole new meaning.
the little girl does say, concerning Jane's death, that ". . .God released her of her pain. . ." so, it's clear that the girl has some idea of God and God's relationship to death in a presumably christian framework. but the little girl seems to perform pagan-like rituals upon the grave: the dancing, the singing. if these were contemporary customs, i'd be likely to place the society much closer to beowulf then to late 1700's england. also, the "we are seven" repetition at the end becomes chant-like, again affecting a shade of paganism.
and of course we have the disagreement between the narrator and the little girl. the opening, asking what could she possibly know of death, and the closing, with the realization of futility in trying to convince the girl. the closing isn't really an affirmation or negation of the opening. what it does, though, is make us realize that opening question which, at the time of reading, seemed rhetorical, appears to be, in fact, an honest question. and the verb "should" in the opening stanza kind of on a whole new meaning.
I didn't really see the poem as that dark actually. I thought it really highlighted the innocence of the child and her lack of understanding of death. Nature, the church-yard, ties her to her dead siblings so she still feels close to them. She can see their graves and interact with them through song or play, so she still feels that her siblings are around. They are a part of nature, she interacts with nature, so they are still a part of her life. Again, similar to "Anecdote for Fathers," Wordsworth highlights the lack of completely rational/logical thoughts of children. Yet there is virture in the simplicity of these thoughts.
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