Interpretation of Conrad Aikens The Awakening
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1. The stages of the journey that the hero in Conrad Aiken's "The Awakening" undergoes are manifested by means of a clever subdivision of the poem into four major sections; each one dealing with a different state of mood, which helps unfold various transitions from one point to another within the work.
In this sense, one is able to identify a state of loneliness and confusion in the first five lines which is fed by a recurrent, dark setting in the middle of the woods (an isolated place as one can imagine), where our hero is depicted as a "seeking ghost" (ll. 4) that is "in the midnight lost, / in self's own midnight" (ll. 3, 4). At this point, one is likely to see the scared persona of the opening lines lost just at the end of his life, not knowing where he is going to or whether he comes from the right place, which frightens him much. A sense of inconformity towards human perishable existence is thus aroused.
Somewhat less depressing are the following five lines of Aiken's poem. The hero makes a stop in his wandering about and turns his attention towards his own inner self. He is prompted to listen to "the water in the soul" (ll...