[Tyr Zalo Hawk]: 712.Essays.Did You Lose Something?

It’s something that, one day, you’ll have to gain: A sense of loss. No man, woman, child, or beast can ever escape loss, because things change, they fade; they dim and finally disappear from our lives. It’s not always forever that you lose something, but for the time that it is gone from your life, whether it be family, friend, or an item of importance, every moment feels like an eternity. In both William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Emily Dickinson’s selected poems loss is inextricably bound with the entirety of the works. None are spared from it, few escape it, and, for some, it is all they are left with when the stories finally draw to their ends.
Loss comes in an unending number of forms, but, in the end, it is also always the same. Something valuable is taken, gently or violently, from the grasp of whomever it belongs to, and replaced with nothing. Lives are stolen by violence, homes are rent in two by storms, and coins fall from the child’s pocket into the warm sand, unnoticed until the moment of purchase. The characters from these literary pieces experience loss in a variety of ways, whether it be the loss of one’s reasoning when drunk, as Stephano and Trinculo are left to realize, the changing of summer to fall, or even the surrender of an entire island. A woman loses her courage at the doorstep to her old home. Alonso loses track of his son Ferdinand in the storm, while Ferdinand himself loses his heart, the innocent young Miranda. Real safety cannot be found once gone. Caliban loses his freedom and rightful rule over the island when Prospero takes control of both. And all the men aboard the ship, at one point or another, lose their sense of reality to Ariel’s illusions. No matter what thing it is that has been lost though, or in what way it has been lost, the loss remains a vital part of the characters lives.
Is there any one type of loss that is greater than another? For example, is a girl’s loss of romantic innocence any more, or less, poignant than, say, the loss of freedom that Caliban endures in The Tempest? There is no one way to define what is precious to people. A rich man may lose a hundred dollars and feel nothing for it, while a small business owner could lose that same hundred and weep for it. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Sound familiar? The only true test of how precious an object or person is to someone is to observe their reaction to the loss of the object/person in question. We must measure the intensity of their emotional response, or else we have naught to judge by. Shakespeare demonstrates several different levels of loss and their effects through his different characters. Prospero both suffers and rejoices at the ‘loss’ of his daughter in marriage to Ferdinand. “So glad of this as they I cannot be, / Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing / At nothing can be more.” (Shakespeare 49, 92-94). While he knows that this marriage will bring his daughter happiness, and help him to win back his royal position, Prospero cannot help but feel that small sense of fatherly remorse in that he has to give away that which is most beloved to him. Meanwhile, Caliban feels bitterness towards Prospero, the man who took control of the island where he, Prospero, and Miranda all reside, as well as his freedom. “For I am all the subjects that you have, / Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me / In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me / The rest o’ th’ island.” (Shakespeare 19, 341-344). Caliban’s anger, while not without its reason and merit, is simply his reaction to the loss he has suffered. Perhaps he has wept before now, but any sadness had given way to his newest way to cope. Antonio, on the other hand, thinks little of the loss of his conscience over the murder of his brother. “But I feel not / This deity in my bosom. Twenty consciences / That stand ‘twixt me and Milan, candied be they / And melt, ere they molest” (Shakespeare 37, 277-279). The fact that he had to kill his own brother is nothing to him because of the reward in the end. That which Antonio gained is so much more important to him than the loss of his brother that the latter might as well never have occurred, and so insignificant is the loss of his conscience that he claims it would’ve been a bother to have it around.
In poem XI, Emily mentions how the loss of appreciation for the “divinest sense” (Dickinson XI, 1) makes you “straightaway dangerous and” (Dickinson XI, 7) they’ll have you “handled with a chain” (Dickinson XI, 8). Society, in Emily’s view, has lost a certain capability in judgment, and reacts with a fear of that which they cannot understand. Later, she comments on the loss of a woman’s earlier life, and then her inability to go back to try to find those lingering memories in her old home. “I moved my fingers off / As cautiously as glass / And held my ears, and like a thief / Fled gasping from the house” (Dickinson LXXIX, 21-24). She fears the vacant face of a stranger questioning her motives, and must run to cope with her lack of courage. The loss of her temporary nerves only drives home to the loss of her earlier days. The more precious a thing is to someone, the greater the pain they must endure when it is lost.
Each and every loss, no matter how small, is an important force in some way. The misplacement of your car keys will instigate an immediate search for them, and can result in tardiness to work. Losing a loved one can alter everything in your life drastically in the briefest of moments, and always a funeral of some sort is held. The examples from the texts are made out to be the driving concepts behind most of the examined works. Poem “XLV” is laced with the loss of both summer and grief, making the two as one. “As imperceptibly as grief / The summer lapsed away,--” (Dickinson XLV, 7-8). Without the vanishing of either, the poem itself would be lost to nothingness. As readers, we would not have the connection between emotion and season, and so much of the meaning Ms. Dickinson meant for the poem to have would be absent. Safety too, when dashed away, becomes the centerpiece of another poem. “Ourself, behind ourself concealed, / Should startle most; / Assassin, his in our apartment, / Be horror’s least.” (Dickinson LXIX, 13-16). The entirety of The Tempest is mainly of Prospero’s loss of power and his bids to reclaim it from the men who unjustly stole it from him. Alongside this main loss is the disorientation the men of the ship face on the island, the loss of Miranda’s heart and love to Ferdinands, and dozens of other small losses which all move the story along. One of these losses is the intoxication of Stephano and Trinculo which, when aided by Caliban into Prospero’s chambers, has an unpredicted consequence. “Put off that gown, Trinculo: by this hand I’ll / have that gown!” (Shakespeare 69, 227-228) Caliban’s new master, in his drunkenness, attempts to make off with some of Prospero’s clothing. This plays to Prospero’s advantage later when he reveals the three for what they are. “These three have robbed me, and this demi-devil / (For he’s a bastard one) had plotted with them / To take my life.” (Shakespeare 81, 272-274). The temporary loss of coherent thought on Stephano and Trinculo’s behalf cost them whatever shreds of dignity and pride they had in the face of their betters. It matters not why the loss occurs, or what is lost, the event itself will always have consequence, whether for good or bad is almost entirely up to chance.
Both Shakespeare and Dickinson knew enough about loss to change the world with it. Shakespeare took it as a central theme for an entire play, developing nearly a dozen different levels of and reactions to it. Emily grabbed the concept and scripted it out into her poems, working and crafting elegant verses around the subject in order to help others understand it. In the end, a single, four-letter word has had more effect on half a dozen poems, a dozen characters, and five pages of essay than anyone could’ve predicted.



Works Cited:

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. 1999

Dickinson, Emily. “LXIX”. The University of Montana Fall Semester 2008 Course Pack for HC 121 Professors Bevington and Johnson New York: Viking Press, Inc. 1948

Dickinson, Emily. “XLV”. The University of Montana Fall Semester 2008 Course Pack for HC 121 Professors Bevington and Johnson New York: Viking Press, Inc. 1948

Dickinson, Emily. “LXXIX”. The University of Montana Fall Semester 2008 Course Pack for HC 121 Professors Bevington and Johnson New York: Viking Press, Inc. 1948

Dickinson, Emily. “XI”. The University of Montana Fall Semester 2008 Course Pack for HC 121 Professors Bevington and Johnson New York: Viking Press, Inc. 1948

© Tyr Hawkaluk (2004-Present)