Ten Years after Your Deliberate Drowning Essay | Critical Essay #2

Ten Years after Your Deliberate Drowning Critical Essay #2

Hill is the author of a poetry collection, has published widely in literary journals, and is an editor for a university publications department. In the following essay, she discusses Behn's prolific use of light and dark to describe the conflicting emotions she experiences after the suicide of a loved one.

The stark title of Behn's poem is as deliberate as the intentional drowning of someone the speaker knew and cared about a decade before the work was written. Typical of Behn's style, the language is honest and uncomplicated throughout. Yet, it is also delicately woven with soft, provocative images that play against the harshness of the title. Her use of a light-versus-dark motif is made all the more powerful by the use of the moths through which she portrays it. These frail, elusive creatures that come out at night, drawn toward light bulbs and candle flame, provide a fitting...
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