Grade 11 Poetry

12  June 2012

“Because I could not stop for Death –“

In this poem, Dickinson’s speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, describing her journey with Death, personified, from life to afterlife. In the opening stanza, the speaker is too busy for Death (“Because I could not stop for Death—“), so Death—“kindly”—takes the time to do what she cannot, and stops for her.

This “civility” that Death exhibits in taking time out for her leads her to give up on those things that had made her so busy—“And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too”—so they can just enjoy this carriage ride (“We slowly drove – He knew no haste”).

In the third stanza we see reminders of the world that the speaker is passing from, with children playing and fields of grain. Her place in the world shifts between this stanza and the next; in the third stanza, “We passed the Setting Sun—,” but at the opening of the fourth stanza, she corrects this—“Or rather – He passed Us –“—because she has stopped being an active agent, and is only now a part of the landscape.

In this stanza, after the realization of her new place in the world, her death also becomes suddenly very physical, as “The Dews drew quivering and chill—,” an

d she explains that her dress is only gossamer, and her “Tippet,” a kind of cape usually made out of fur, is “only Tulle.”

After this moment of seeing the coldness of her death, the carriage pauses at her new “House.” The description of the house—“A Swelling of the Ground—“—makes it clear that this is no cottage, but instead a grave. Yet they only “pause” at this house, because although it is ostensibly her home, it is really only a resting place as she travels to eternity.

The final stanza shows a glimpse of this immortality, made most clear in the first two lines, where she says that although it has been centuries since she has died, it feels no longer than a day. It is not just any day that she compares it to, however—it is the very day of her death, when she saw “the Horses’ Heads” that were pulling her towards this eternity.

Analysis

Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any poem. In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. He is no frightening, or even intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she was too busy to find time for him.

It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in “held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another alliterative word—her life.

Indeed, the next stanza shows the life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is contrasted with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing, which could be emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life—although the children are playing “At Recess,” the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence. The use of anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine.

The next stanza moves to present a more conventional vision of death—things become cold and more sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it quickly becomes clear that though this part of death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image of the grave as home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final stanza, which ends with immortality. Additionally, the use of alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza as a whole less sinister.

That immorality is the goal is hinted at in the first stanza, where “Immortality” is the only other occupant of the carriage, yet it is only in the final stanza that we see that the speaker has obtained it. Time suddenly loses its meaning; hundreds of years feel no different than a day. Because time is gone, the speaker can still feel with relish that moment of realization, that death was not just death, but immortality, for she “surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity –.” By ending with “Eternity –,” the poem itself enacts this eternity, trailing out into the infinite.

http://www.gradesaver.com/emily-dickinsons-collected-poems/study-guide/section1/

Sonnet Analysis – “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be”

By Samantha Lazar – October 27, 2004

John Keats’ sonnet “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be,” written in 1818 when the poet was twenty-three years old, deals with the young man’s fears that he will not live long enough to accomplish what he wants to in life. He is afraid that his artistic and poetic potential will not be fulfilled, and that his love will be cut short. Based on Keats’ letters and his biography, we can assume that the speaker is indeed Keats himself. Interestingly, the poem was written before Keats contracted tuberculosis, from which he would die a mere three years after the poem was written, adding an eerie, portentous quality to the sonnet. However, it is understandable that he would have fears of an untimely death. His mother had died of the disease a few years earlier, and his younger brother was currently suffering from it.

“When I have Fears” is in many ways typical of Keats’ work. He was a master of the sonnet form, and the poem is full of sensitive passion and the romantic imagery for which he is famous. Throughout the poem Keats uses a variety of poetic elements, including form and metrics, to help convey his thoughts and to emphasize his imagery.

The poem takes the form of a Shakespearian sonnet, and rather strictly adheres to that structure’s template. The lines follow the standard ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme, and, making the rhymes as simple as possible, they are all perfect and masculine. Each rhyme is clearly differentiated from the others as well. Also in keeping with the definition of the form, the poem is written in iambic pentameter. All the lines have a neat ten syllables, and six of them are perfectly iambic. The remaining eight lines have generally few foot substitutions, with occasional trochees and spondees appearing.

The form of the Shakespearian sonnet is so ideally suited for this poem that Keats must have seen little need to buck against it. In fact, doing so would probably undermine the perfect match of the sonnet’s form with his content. In the words of Paul Fussel, “…the sonnet as a form tends to imply a particular, highly personal, usually somewhat puzzled or worshipful attitude toward experience,” which is exactly what Keats conveys in this poem.

Continuing to follow the mold of the Shakespearian sonnet, “When I have Fears” is set up as a thought or long sentence that is not completed until the final lines of the poem. Each quatrain starts with the word “when” and the introduction of an elaborate circumstance, but we do not find out what happens when these things occur until the middle of the twelfth line, when the completion of the idea is thrust upon us, signaled by the word “then,” which clearly marks the turn in the sonnet.

Each quatrain introduces a slightly different idea, but the ideas are all related, and all tie into the fear of an untimely death. The final two and a half lines after the turn are different, as discussed above. However, under the powerful influence of the Petrarchan sonnet, “When I have Fears” slightly veers away from the true Shakespearian form. Although the ideas of the three quatrains all tie into the central idea, there is a clear distinction between the interconnected ideas presented in the octave – that he will not be able to write all he wants in his lifetime – and the separate fear expressed in the third quatrain – that his love will be cut short. This causes the feeling of a slight shift between the octave and the sestet, which is where the turn would be expected in a Petrarchan sonnet. Perhaps the leaning away from the Shakespearian sonnet occurs because sonnets of that form tend to have quick, often witty resolutions at the end, whereas Petrarchan sonnets, with more lines to slowly ease and develop the conclusion of the poem, tend to have endings that are more emotional and in depth. Supporting this notion even further, Keats found it necessary to elongate his couplet by an extra half line.

With the slight melding of these two sonnet forms, Keats created a perfect, tailored vehicle for the expression of his ideas. The octave’s two quatrains discuss his fear that he will not reach his poetic potential – specifically that he will not be able to write all he wants or express all he can before he dies. This idea is broken into two main images and metaphors, one for each quatrain.

The poem opens with imagery of a bountiful harvest. Keats likens the unreaped bounty to himself, saying that he (his mind and emotion, his “teeming brain” (l2)) is very full and fertile. He fears he will not be able to fully harvest (by writing poetry) all of his metaphorical grain in his lifetime: “Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, / Before high-piléd books, in charactery, / Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;” (2-4).

In the second quatrain, the idea expressed is that of the nearly endless supply of beauty in nature and Keats’ desire to document and reflect it (to “trace” (7) it). He recognizes both the simple, clear beauty of the natural world in “shadows” (8) and “the night’s starr’d face” (5), as well as a deeper, more hidden and mysterious beauty that is still partially obscured and will take time – which he may not have – to fully understand and express. He recognizes this masked beauty as “Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” (6). It is not clear whether he means the “high romance” to refer to the potential, unwritten poetry or if it exists in nature by itself, while the unnecessary figure of John Keats stands idly by. Either way, it is clear that something is out there, untapped. The first two quatrains work together to give the impression that there is so much raw material in the world that, to continue the metaphor, as long as Keats lived his field need never be fallow.

In the third quatrain, perhaps due in part to the Petrarchan influence discussed earlier, the idea shifts slightly to voice another element of Keats’ concern that his life will be cut short. He now expresses the fear that he will lose his beloved. Just as he fears that his life will not be allowed to run its full course, he does not allow the quatrain to run its expected measure: it is only three and a half lines long. He emphasizes the abrupt cut by the use of a hyphen, conveying a sense of suddenness and even urgency that parallels his feelings: “Never have relish in the faery power / Of unreflecting love; – then on the shore” (11-12).

The comparative shortness of this quatrain can have other implications as well. It can be interpreted to mean that love is short and fleeting, and can end at any minute. Calling his beloved “fair creature of an hour” (9) supports this notion. Additionally, Keats devotes more than twice as many lines to discussing his desire to write poetry than his unwillingness to let go of love, perhaps making a qualitative judgment about the two.

After the three quatrains, “then” in the middle of line twelve marks a clear turn in the poem and indicates that the reader will finally find out what happens “when” all the previous thoughts occur to the poet. Accordingly, the final two and a half lines do just that. When he has such thoughts, he “stand[s] alone, and think[s]” (13), “Till love and fame to nothingness do sink” (14). That is, he feels himself put into perspective by the “wide world” (13), and feels that he is nothing, and everything is insignificant and meaningless – including his fear of not writing all he can and his thwarted desire to achieve fame and lasting love.

In addition to Keats’ themes of his fear of dying before his full potential is reached and of the fleeting nature of love, an interesting dichotomy between thought and feeling is explored. It is clear that Keats wants to feel and not to think. This is a bit paradoxical, since the action of writing a poem necessitates thinking (even if it is thinking about feeling). Things that Keats states explicitly as thoughts are generally negative, often specifically referencing death (he “think[s] that [he] may never live to trace” (7)), and at the end of the poem he “stand[s] alone and think[s]2” (13), which brings on a very sad, empty feeling.

Keats exalts feeling over thought. He yearns for “unreflecting love” (12). That is, love without thought. He says that he might “Never have relish” (11) in such love, implying that not only will he not experience it in the future if his life is abbreviated, but that he has not yet had it. He seems to be saying that he is not capable of stopping thought, and simply feeling, even though he would like to. Other things related to feelings as opposed to thoughts are also positive. When he “beholds” (5) nature, he is awed and inspired by it. He is not thinking about it, but simply letting the feelings it arouses wash over him. “[W]hen I feel… / That I shall never look upon thee more” (9-10) may seem to be an exception to this idea, associating feeling with something negative, but in fact it’s not. He is simply using a misnomer, calling the thought of never looking upon his beloved a feeling.

One final idea expressed in the poem is Keats’ desire to strive for and to believe in idealistic fantasies, even though he knows that they are not realities. In the end he comes to terms with the almost cruelly indifferent, depressing world. He alludes to these fantasies when he calls writing poetry “the magic hand of chance” (8), and when he mentions the “faery power” (11) of love (in this case also playing into the idea that love is only a myth).

Keats uses many poetic elements to emphasize these themes and to help convey his meanings and images. In addition to making use of essentials like meter, Keats also employs many smaller techniques throughout the poem. The repetition of the word “when” at the beginning of each quatrain and the parallel structure of the of the first lines of the first two quatrains serves to repeatedly draw attention to the focus on time, and keeps bringing the reader back into the immediate moment. Similarly, the parallelism and repetition of the word “before” in lines two and three does the same thing on a smaller scale. Not exact repetition, but the use of similar sounding words is also found. The similarity of the words “fair” (9) and “faery” (11) links the two ideas, perhaps implying that love (which “fair creature” indicates by metonyme) is only “faery” (a magical illusion).

Keats uses alliteration in many other places as well. The hard “g” sound is repeated in the first quatrain with the words “glean’d” (2), “garners” (4), and “grain” (4). All of these words also carry stress. The repetition of the clear, full sound, in addition to the fact that the words are all associated with images of plentiful things, enhances the image of bountiful fields. Similarly, the “r” sound is repeated in this quatrain. It is found in the words “brain” (2), and “charactery” (3), as well as many times in line four, “Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain.” Again, all of the “r” sounds are stressed. When spoken, the sound is naturally heavy and a bit drawn out, creating a feeling of indelibility, which, after all, is what Keats, would like himself and his work to be. More alliteration is found in line thirteen with the words “wide world.” In this case the sound is especially pertinent to the image: when spoken, the “w” sound actually makes the mouth wide, and the sound itself seems to have a wide feel.

The juxtaposition of “wide world” with “I stand alone” (both line 13) emphasizes the contrast between the two images. Keats does other little things like this that enhance the poem’s imagery. The apostrophes in the words “night’s starr’d” (5) form a concrete image, as they actually look like stars perched above the words. The fact that the apostrophe in “starred” is unnecessary (even if it was written “starred,” the pronunciation would be the same) lends credence to the idea that Keats was cognizant of the image the apostrophes create.

Keats’ simile that books hold grain “like rich garners” (4) works within the harvest metaphor to self-consciously bring attention to the fact that it is a metaphor and a poem, maintaining no pretense of reality. He acknowledges that he is like a full field of grain, he does not try to pass himself off as one. This picks up on the theme of the disconnection between magic, fantasy, poetry, and cold reality. Then, in the same breath, he jumps back into the metaphor by saying that his poetry is not like, but is “full ripen’d grain” (4), as he strives to regain the fantasy.

The last main poetic element that Keats uses in this sonnet is meter. As mentioned earlier, the meter remains rather regular throughout the poem. It is iambic pentameter, as expected in a traditional sonnet, and about half of the lines have slight variations. Since the meter of most of the poem is so regular, the slight alterations that occur seem especially important. Some of the substitutions serve specific, clear purposes in addition to simply making the rhythm of the poem interesting and not overly “sing-song” or predictable. Small words and articles throughout the poem that should be stressed according to strict iambic pentameter often are not. Some examples of these little, unstressed words are “the” (4), “of” (6), and “with” (8). Often times there are two of them in a row, like “with the” (8), and “in the” (11).

The lack of an expected stress on an insignificant word allows for the stresses on the more important words to carry more weight and receive more notice. Keats inserts extra stresses in a number of places. In line three, the words “high-piléd” are both stressed, creating a spondee in the place of an iamb. The two stresses work directly with the meaning and imagery of those two words, creating a building-up feeling. It almost seems like there are three stresses in a row, since the reader nearly skips over the unstressed second syllable of “piléd” to go straight to the more substantial, stressed word, “books.” This third stress adds to the feeling even more, making it really feel like a big pile is being built.

The word “starr’d” (5) also carries an irregular stress. Just like the concrete imagery of the apostrophes in this phrase, the three stressed words in a row, “night’s starr’d face,” seem almost like stars – perhaps Orion’s belt, if that’s not stretching it too far – which adds to the imagery. The word “Huge” in line six carries a stress for rather obvious reasons. It would be counterintuitive for a word meaning something large and grand to be unstressed. Also, the previous line starts with the word “Behold,” but does not say what to behold (the “Huge cloudy symbols”) until the next line. After the anticipation and excitement created by this delay and enjambment, the declaration of the object is surely worthy of a stress. The unexpected stress on the word “fair” in line nine serves to emphasize the alliteration with the word that comes before it (“feel”), again tying feeling together with positive, “fair” things. Additionally, the stress is important because it marks a change in the poem: he is now addressing someone, the “fair creature of an hour” (9), even if it is just for a couple of lines. “Never” in line eleven forms a trochee for emphasis instead of an iamb. “Never” is an extremely important word, since the whole idea is that he won’t achieve the lofty goals and happy love that he desires. Lastly, “wide” and “world” in line thirteen are both stressed, as is necessary in order to highlight the alliteration and convey the “wide” feeling of the words.

Throughout “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be,” Keats employs a plethora of poetic elements to convey his meanings and enhance his imagery. Form and metrics are paramount among these, as Keats masterfully adheres to and abstracts from the sonnet form in order to reap all of its potential.

http://www.gradesaver.com/keats-poems-and-letters/essays/essay8/

“Ozymandias”

The first-person poetic persona states that he met a traveler who had been to “an antique land.” The traveler told him that he had seen a vast but ruined statue, where only the legs remained standing. The face was sunk in the sand, frowning and sneering. The sculptor interpreted his subject well. There also was a pedestal at the statue, where the traveler read that the statue was of “Ozymandias, King of Kings.” Although the pedestal told “mighty” onlookers that they should look out at the King’s works and thus despair at his greatness, the whole area was just covered with flat sand. All that is left is the wrecked statue.

Analysis

“Ozymandias” is a fourteen-line, iambic pentameter sonnet. It is not a traditional one, however. Although it is neither a Petrarchan sonnet nor a Shakespearean sonnet, the rhyming scheme and style resemble a Petrarchan sonnet more, particularly with its 8-6 structure rather than 4-4-4-2.

Here we have a speaker learning from a traveler about a giant, ruined statue that lay broken and eroded in the desert. The title of the poem informs the reader that the subject is the 13th-century B.C. Egyptian King Ramses II, whom the Greeks called “Ozymandias.” The traveler describes the great work of the sculptor, who was able to capture the king’s “passions” and give meaningful expression to the stone, an otherwise “lifeless thing.” The “mocking hand” in line 8 is that of the sculptor, who had the artistic ability to “mock” (that is, both imitate and deride) the passions of the king. The “heart” is first of all the king’s, which “fed” the sculptor’s passions, and in turn the sculptor’s, sympathetically recapturing the king’s passions in the stone.

The final five lines mock the inscription hammered into the pedestal of the statue. The original inscription read “I am Ozymandias, King of Kings; if anyone wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some of my exploits.” The idea was that he was too powerful for even the common king to relate to him; even a mighty king should despair at matching his power. That principle may well remain valid, but it is undercut by the plain fact that even an empire is a human creation that will one day pass away. The statue and surrounding desert constitute a metaphor for invented power in the face of natural power. By Shelley’s time, nothing remains but a shattered bust, eroded “visage,” and “trunkless legs” surrounded with “nothing” but “level sands” that “stretch far away.” Shelley thus points out human mortality and the fate of artificial things.

The lesson is important in Europe: France’s hegemony has ended, and England’s will end sooner or later. Everything about the king’s “exploits” is now gone, and all that remains of the dominating civilization are shattered “stones” alone in the desert. Note the use of alliteration to emphasize the point: “boundless and bare”; “lone and level.”

It is important to keep in mind the point of view of “Ozymandias.” The perspective on the statue is coming from an unknown traveler who is telling the speaker about the scene. This helps create a sense of the mystery of history and legend: we are getting the story from a poet who heard it from a traveler who might or might not have actually seen the statue. The statue itself is an expression of the sculptor, who might or might not have truly captured the passions of the king. Our best access to the king himself is not the statue, not anything physical, but the king’s own words.

Poetry might last in a way that other human creations cannot. Yet, communicating words presents a different set of problems. For one thing, there are problems of translation, for the king did not write in English. More seriously, there are problems of transcription, for apparently Shelley’s poem does not even accurately reproduce the words of the inscription.

Finally, we cannot miss the general comment on human vanity in the poem. It is not just the “mighty” who desire to withstand time; it is common for people to seek immortality and to resist death and decay. Furthermore, the sculptor himself gets attention and praise that used to be deserved by the king, for all that Ozymandias achieved has now “decayed” into almost nothing, while the sculpture has lasted long enough to make it into poetry. In a way, the artist has become more powerful than the king. The only things that “survive” are the artist’s records of the king’s passion, carved into the stone.

Perhaps Shelley chose the medium of poetry in order to create something more powerful and lasting than what politics could achieve, all the while understanding that words too will eventually pass away. Unlike many of his poems, “Ozymandias” does not end on a note of hope. There is no extra stanza or concluding couplet to honor the fleeting joys of knowledge or to hope in human progress. Instead, the traveler has nothing more to say, and the persona draws no conclusions of his own.

http://www.gradesaver.com/percy-shelley-poems/study-guide/section4/

 Life is Fine – Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is known as a significant poet of the Harlem Renaissance- “an African American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture”. Hughes connects with the audience through his sophistication towards life’s matters in which issues revolving around the African American community are frequently addressed.  In his poem “Life is fine”, Hughes particularly brings out the significance of life which is often reinforced by the obstacles that people encounter in their living journeys. The poem is considered Hughes’s most successful piece of work as it concentrates on the hardships of not only the African American community, but all humanity.

“Life is Fine” is a perfect example that demonstrates an endless scenario when people come to death as a permanent solution for everything. The poem consists six stanzas, and the first four stanzas are the depictions of the speaker’s attempts to commit suicide.  His determination is highlighted in the first stanza, particularly in these two sentences: “I tried to think but couldn’t; So I jumped in and sank.” Through this, his intellectual impasse- a principle that leads to him committing suicide is illustrated. However, his attempt fails eventually: “I came up once and hollered! I came up twice and cried!” Based on this, the audience can interpret that he in fact tries to drown himself twice before he gives up and starts crying. At this point, the speaker’s strong emotion about the situation he’s struggling with is evoked. He then again makes an effort to kill himself by jumping from a sixteenth floor of a building in the third stanza. This is also when the audience comes to know the reason for his decision to seek the death: “I thought about my baby -And thought I would jump down”. Obviously, the loss of love is the motivation that pushes him to the edge. Nevertheless, at the end the speaker is still alive as he finally realizes the sacredness of life enough to acclaim: “Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine.”

The theme of this poem refers to the disillusion that people often have about death. When there is something extremely difficult and melancholic which may seem impossible to overcome, death is often considered the only outlet. People find death as a quick and coward means to run away from the pains that life creates. However, the poem reveals an opposite side of this matter: it is actually harder to keep moving on than to give up on life. By demonstrating how the man struggles with forcing himself to death and at the end becomes more conscious of what he has been given, the poet introduces the concepts of life being “fine as wine” and how people should appreciate it instead of easily giving it away.

Hughes structures the poem as a monologue where the speaker narrates his development from being in total despair to self- enlightenment. The poem is also didactic since it teaches the audience a moral about life appreciation. By linking the speaker’s situation in the poem with their own experiences in encountering similar miseries, the audience can easily interpret the message that the poet is trying to convey through his poem.

The rhyme scheme in this poem is simple. The last word in the second line rhymes with the last word in the fourth line, therefore the scheme is recognized as A-B-C-B. However, what give the poem individuality are the three refrains where each of them is placed after every two stanzas. The exclamation marks in the refrains are used to express the speaker’s vehement emotions towards the pain as well as the struggles he is getting through when trying to commit suicide. The similarities between the first two refrains: “But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!”and “But it was High up there! It was high!” demonstrates the speaker’s fear as he almost experiences the frightening features of death. The word “but” also reveals the speaker’s effort to explain why his determination fails as death approaches him.

In the first two refrains, personification is used. It is not common to see such adjectives like “cold” and “high” to be written in capitals. Therefore, the purpose of this is to give those adjectives significant positions as to give people names. This technique creates an interpretation that Cold and High are in fact the two faces of the Death. Another poetic device in “Life is fine” is simile. The speaker’s comparison of life being “fine as wine” in the third refrain evokes the speaker’s transformation from a suicidal weakling who appears in the opening of the poem to such an optimistic man at in the end. Moreover, language use in this poem is also noticeable since “gonna”, an example of colloquial English language, is present in the last line of the sixth stanza. By including this specific language, Hughes aims to make his piece of work more engaging to the audience, particularly the Black American community who is known to have created this distinguished language.

The tone of Hughes in this poem is forceful and bitter, but yet critical. He profoundly depicts the speaker’s hardships by letting the man open express his melancholy to the audience. The bitterness in the poet’s tone is evoked when he emphasizes the unavoidable failure when the speaker tries to kill himself twice. At the same time, Hughes also criticizes humans’ superficiality through the disregard of life that the speaker shows in the poem. Hence, the mood created is realistic and gloomy at first but it becomes more positive as the speaker finally realizes that “life is fine”. The audience is taken through the changes of mood from extreme pessimism to optimism as the speaker desperately seeks for death at the beginning and then in the end becomes more conscious of how lucky he still is as he admits:“So since I’m still here livin’, I guess I will live on.”

“Life is fine” by Langston Hughes successful conveys one of the most fundamental humanity’s cognitions: life is sacred and we should not give it away no matter what. Through the situation that is brought out in the poem, Hughes depicts death as the only escape from the reality. Life and death may seem to be two extremely opposite concepts, but if humans could not be enlightened soon enough; the distance between life and death is just a jump away as described in the poem.  “Life is fine” not only addresses a typical scenario when people comes to death as an option to end everything but it is also a meaningful lesson for everyone to reflect on themselves.

http://mphuongnguyen.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/poetry-analysis-life-is-fine-by-langston-hughes/