Literary Analysis: The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Siddiqui

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Rainy Day” uses the themes of lost and renewed hope, youth and grief to show how much our past and future experiences affect our lives and how though we face multiple struggles in life we can overcome them. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born February 28th, 1807 and died March 24th, 1882. He was inspired to write poetry from Romanticism. Not only did he accomplish writing many pieces of poetry he was also a novelist. He wrote “The Rainy Day” in 1841 and wrote it in memory of his wife who had passed away in front of his eyes. Longfellow’s poems are mostly long but this was one of his few short poems. “The Rainy Day” was popular for …show more content…

We forget that perhaps it is time to move on. Longfellow also uses negative connotations here such as “mouldering past” which shows how deep the wound was, how greatly he is affected by his past. Not only negative connotation, Longfellow also uses imagery to give the effect of the past clinging to one. Another quote that goes along with this similar thought is, “ He is depressed because his youth is lost, yet he continues to dwell on the past instead of looking to the future. Eventually he realizes that everyone has sorrowful moments in their life, and must learn to deal with them and move on.” (Guest). This quote also shows that the memories of the youth and the past though will always be present cannot be the out everyday focus, we cannot live in our past. Conclusively The poem and the quote are both also moving towards the central thought that though we may have our past and our future we cannot focus on the ghosts of our past, rather we must learn to move on.

There is a time in everyones life when they realize that things can change. There is always time for things to change. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s case, his fate had changed his life. It was in his fate to have his wife die, due to that he had become depressed but eventually through his poem “The Rainy Day” he had come to a sort of epiphany that there is still a way to change. He had come to realize that he did not need to grieve