Mr. Fear- Poem Reponse 2

Stephanie and I taught this poem to the class, so I figure it's be a great one to evaluate on my Epistle.... "Can I please have someone read the poem?"... "Ok, now can I have someone read it again?" The first thing that sticks out for me is the line "Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams, what do you have for me tonight?" This is very straight forward, what fearful thing, or scare must we overcome in our dreams? The author might be suggesting that people are nervous or antsy to go to bed because they are afraid of what Mr. Fear will make us deal with while we sleep.

I remember Jordyn R. suggested that possibly the title having the Mr. in front of it suggested the authoritative figure that fear has over us. We respect it, yet it always will have some amount of control over us; hence, MR. Fear. I agree with her interpretation... Although I would like to include that possibly, the author feels formality must be used when talking to the "fear" because it controls us in our dreams.

After reading The Heart of Darkness, I noticed the obvious symbolism with black and white. There is a line in the poem that reads, "And he looks through his sack, his black sack of troubles." The reference to black in that line is clearly a negative symbol of fear. Fear is the unknown, intimidating, scary, therefor it must be represented with black.


The last thing I would like to comment on, is the last stanza which talks about what the author heard, or experienced right before they fell asleep. I think it is pretty well known, that what a person experiences right before he or she falls asleep influences the dream more then anything else. So what if right before you fall asleep, while your laying in your bed trying to sleep, you think about something happy. Something that you could never be scared of... Maybe that will overcome Mr. Fear.

<3