An Analysis of Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon Essay

Surrender is a concept that can be perceived either as completely giving up or embracing a given thought. Jane Kenyons Let Evening Come is pastoral type of poetry which conveys a dominant theme of surrender. Although pastorals most often depict the rural life of the past, Kenyons poem can be interpreted by a timeless audience. The whole poem seemingly resembles a type of prayer one can recite in order to be constantly reminded to simply embrace the inevitable evening, the metaphor for death. The poem is also reflective of Kenyons personal view of surrendering her own life to her battle with leukemia. Through the repetitive use of the word let and the mention of the word God in the last stanza, Kenyons poem suggests the speakers willingness to surrender to a more divine supernatural force. The structure of the poem is filled with very specific details about images prone to change the speaker notices in her surroundings. The speaker begins by suggesting to let the light of the late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn. The light can symbolize a divine beings presence shining through her life. Meanwhile, the sun moving down is prophetic of the afternoons end moving onto the inevitable evening. Next stanza describes a cricket taking up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. This is yet another image that suggests change. The act of sewing or anything pertaining to weaving can be tied to the twists and turns of life. Letting the dew collect on the hoe abandoned long grass, the fox go back to its sandy den, the wind die down, the shed go black inside, are all images that touch on the theme of surrender. The speaker is merely encouraging letting the natural flow of things because change is not necessarily bad. Fighting change, the speaker suggests, is futile because the inevitable cannot be overcome.Although evening or death is inevitable, the overall tone of...