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Dover Beach: Conflicting Imagery - College Paper

Dover Beach: Conflicting Imagery

In the poem Dover Beach, the poet uses conflicting imagery to give
meaning to the poem. The differences in the way that the poet sees the
relationship between the beach and the sea and the way that most people
would see it become more pronounced as the poem develops. He also uses the
change in attitude from the first stanza to the last to emphasize his
message.
The poem starts with the normal image one would expect of a beach
and a peaceful moonlit night, but quickly moves to an entirely different
point of view. By the end of the first stanza the sea is no longer peaceful
and calm, but crashing with a “grating roar”. The poet has taken an image
that most people associate with ...

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plays and the suffering that necessarily accompanied
them. This image becomes powerful as the reader realizes that the poet is
saying that he can hear the same message on Dover Beach that Sophocles
heard so many years ago by the Aegean. He is basically saying that the
nature of life doesn't change. There was suffering in the times of the
Greeks, suffering in his time, and there will be suffering after he is gone.

The poet finishes the poem of with several images that lend even
more power to the poem. At the end of the poem the sea has become the exact
opposite of what it was at the beginning. No longer calm, the image the
poet uses to describe it is that of two armies senselessly fighting. There
is no point to their struggle, just as there is no point to the crashing of
the sea. It just is. And that is the point that the poet really seems to be
trying to make; that no matter what happens misery and suffering will
always be present in the world and there is no explanation for them. ...

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Dover Beach: Conflicting Imagery. (2008, March 10). Retrieved January 18, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Dover-Beach-Conflicting-Imagery/80298

"Dover Beach: Conflicting Imagery." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 10 Mar. 2008. Web. 18 Jan. 2026. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Dover-Beach-Conflicting-Imagery/80298>

"Dover Beach: Conflicting Imagery." Essayworld.com. March 10, 2008. Accessed January 18, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Dover-Beach-Conflicting-Imagery/80298.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/10/2008 04:53:32 AM
Category: Poetry & Poets
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 516
Pages: 2

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