Irony, Images, and Illusions in Dover Beach :: Arnold Dover Beach Essays

Irony, Images, and Illusions in Dover Beach         In the rime Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold there is a lot of irony,appeal to the auditory and visual sense, and illusions. The tone in this poem isvery sad and dismal, but he shows us how to keep faith and intrust in spite ofthat and how important being honest, true, and faithful to one another, reallyis. Throughout this poem, Arnold mentions all of these traits and ties them alltogether.         The irony in this poem is the main eyepatch of the poem.  A man has taken awoman to a beautiful beach in France.  There they look over the cliffs at thebeautiful ocean, the stagnate is full and bright, and the iniquity-air is calm andpeaceful.  She thinks that she is spill to this romantic place to be wooed bythis man.  Instead he turns to her and talks to her about Sophocles.  She, notunderstanding what exactly is going on, later realizes that he was getting tothe point of having each other and always  being there for one another.         The poet uses visual and auditory images to mainly help the romantic,fantasy-like place.  The ocean is calm, the tide is full and Of pebbles whichthe waves draw back, and fling, is an example of images that appeal to thevisual sense.  While Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land and Withtremulous cadence slow, and bring... uses an auditory sense.  Come to thewindow, sweet is the night air, can apply to both senses.  Sweet can implyangelic or precious to qualify to be an visual image, or it can mean almost likea melodious tune.         Illusions are used in this poem as deception for the girl that the manis trying to hold a non-romantic conversation with.  A theory is portrayed inthis poem by Plato, the world is an illusion.  In many case this that falls true. In the first stanza of the poem , the s urrounds of the two people is discussed.Words like calm, tranquil, sweet, and eternal, are used which seem to foreshadowa lovely romantic evening. As the poem continues on, the evening is passtalking about anything but love.  The final topic of discussion goes much deeperthan just love.  They end up talking about how the world is sometimes so