Final Article of “The Ship of Death”

D.H Lawrence The Ship of Death

By :  Ajeng Kurniasari               ( 20131111002)

        Encik Gaviani Warda      ( 20131111031)

           

            One of famous writer is David Herbert Richard Lawrence ( 11 September 1885- 2 March 1930 ) was an english novelist, poet , playwright , essaylist , literary critic and painter who published as D.H.Lawrence. His collected works , among other things, represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of moderinity and industrilialisation . In them , some of the issues Lawrence explores are emotional health , vitality , spontaneity , and instinct .

  D.H. Lawrence asks in his dark and compelling work of poetry entitled “The Ship of Death”. Written shortly before his own death in early 1930, the poem is divided into ten separate parts that proceed in what seems like a circular motion, efficiently chronicling the long and painful process of aging, the deceptive “suddenness” of death, and the pink, fleshy reappearance into the world with a miraculous rebirth. It centers itself around the images of a boat, our “ship of death” that allows the soul to survive the “soundless, ungurgling flood” that threatens to sweep us up and, if not for “the ship of death,” would swallow that little shred of ourselves that is left as the abysmal sea of eternity submerges “the last branches of the tree” of the individual’s earthly existence.

(Source : www.google.com )

            In that poem show that moral imagination especially in religion . That moral issue is shown for each word which are related of in the stanza. In moral

 religion are explain about “ Death “ . Death is the process that the soul of someone are leaving from the body , it can seen from the quotation below ,

"Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

From the quotation above , it can shown that the process of death from the sentence

“And it is time to go, to bid farewell , to one's own self, and find an exit, from the fallen self”

From the sentence , the “Death” is a time to say good bye from with theirs body , it means can show the proces before the soul are leaving from the body . sometimes the people who will die feel that situation . There are something wrong are losing from the body . And the person must be prepare for the death , it can seen frrom the quotation below ,

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?" [1]

"Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

From the quotation above , it can seen a word “ship”, it means a symbol as a place where the people wait the process of death to go the next destination , ship is a place as the station are death feeling , it can show from the quotation below ,

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new." [1]

"Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life." [1]

             Im relogion that explain if the proces of “Death” are painful , it means how the souls are go off from the body , it can support from the statement “cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life." When the soul are leave the body especialy in the word the condition like

“in the last brach of tree” , it means it like a part of live where “Death” is a process which the people in the end position of the life a nd must be prepare of the live , it can shown in the seventh stanza , it can seen from the sentence ,

We’re dying ,we are dying , so all we can do

Is now to be willing to die , and build the ship

Of death to carry the soul on the longest journey

A little ship with oars , food , and little dishes , and all accountrements

Filting and ready for the departing soul

That’s explain if the people dying , They must prepare everything that taken when dying . it can shown from the symbols like “A little ship with oars , food , and little dishes , and all accountrements” , that describe a charity , goodness and worship which are they bring in the long journey , then its expalin that “Death” is the process which are the the end choise in the  life and the the end of life is “Death”, it can seen from the stanza ,

There is no port , there is nowhere to go

Only the deepaning blackness darkening still

And sideways litteraly dark , so there is no direction anymore

And everything is gone , the body is gone .

In the seventh stanza , in the sentence “there is no port , there is nowhere to go “, only the depaning blackness darkening still “. It can showing the blackness ans darkening meaning of “Death”. All of the life must be back because in the moral issue in Religion that “Death” is the process which are get the enternity of life in the nineth stanza it can seen from the quotation below ,

And yet out of enternity of thread

Separates itself on the blackness

A horizontal thread

That fumes a little that pallor upon the dark

The meaning of “The Ship of Death” is religious, because it draws upon traditional beliefs to shape its expression. Finally, “The Ship of Death” is less confidently a statement of certainty about religious hope for life eternal than it is about the stern necessity of psychological renewal in every person’s natural life. Perhaps each night’s sleep is a passage over the flood of death-darkness, so each morning is a survival of spirit from the death of the body in sleep’s oblivion.