A Day Dream Essay Questions

How would you characterize the different voices in the poem?

The poem works in three different registers. There is the speaker's narrative voice, which describes, in detail, the beautiful nature scenery around her. This voice is primarily lighthearted and absorbed in all of the signs of summer she sees. Then there is the speaker's interior monologue, which she employs when she is trying to figure out why she cannot enjoy this summer afternoon. This voice is more melancholic and reflective, as it wrestles with the speaker's unhappiness and depicts the ending of all the beautiful things that she sees. Finally, there is the voice of the divine being who visits the speaker. Its tone is markedly different in that it is more authoritative, given its omniscient perspective, and more positive, as it encourages the speaker to experience the present.

Why does the speaker reintroduce the images of the trees and birds during her interior monologue?

The speaker reintroduces the images of trees and birds in order to change their significance and demonstrate why she is unhappy. When the reader first sees the birds, they are singing happily. The same is true for the trees, which shake their leafy branches. Both seem to be part of the celebration of the imagined wedding between May and June. Yet when the speaker revisits these images, she envisions the birds as flying desperately through the cold, and the leaves already showing signs of their eventual fall. In both cases, she is taking away their significance in the summer scene and showing what they will eventually become. This is important to the poem's main themes in that it reveals how her focus on looking ahead prevents her from appreciating beauty in the present.