Point of View

For most of the poem, Brontë uses first-person singular. Though the poem is about her sister’s death, she starts off using first-person to explain how “There’s little joy in life for me, / And little terror in the grave” (1-2). Only towards the end of the first stanza is Brontë clearer about how her depressive state results from the death of her sister, whom Brontë would have “died to save” (4). Therefore, Brontë suggests early on that she is not simply going to give a narrative of the events surrounding her sister’s death. Rather, she will give the reader a close look into her inner turmoil and how feelings change from numbness towards life and death, to sarcasm and anger towards God in the third and fourth stanzas, and finally to pained and resigned loneliness.

Only the second stanza, which includes imagery of Anne...