Essay Questions

Analyze how author Quevedo characterizes death in his poem, “How You Slip From Between My Hands!”

In “How You Slip From Between My Hands,” the narrator confronts his own morality and impending death. He curses Death and mourns his youth and the life he is soon to lose. The narrator characterizes Death as a living, breathing being—one who stalks his victims throughout the entirety of their life and is always watching, waiting for lives to claim. He depicts death as a character is who is always lurking, always seeking out a new victim. In this way, Death is portrayed as a vengeful being, one who infringes upon youth and lies in wait for the moment when a life can be claimed as his.

Many of Quevedo’s poems address both morality and love. Why do you think these contradictory ideas appear in Quevedo’s poems so often?

In many of his poems, Quevedo talks about morality and immortality. He often bemoans the fragility of life and the fact that all lives are finite. And yet, interwoven within these themes of morality and death are similar themes about love and companionship. In this way, it can be assumed that Quevedo ties these two themes together so often because these two ideas are often fundamentally intertwined. Love and/or companionship softens the terrible and debilitating blow of death. This companionship makes death more palatable and permits all of us—on a mortal, human level—to find solace in others. In this way, it is very possible that Quevedo’s poems—though they overwhelmingly discuss mortality and death—are also fundamentally ground in the concept of love, for it is love in our youth that provides us a sense of companionship and helps us to cope.

Quevedo’s poems, “All These Are Swept Away in One Brief Year” and “How You Slip From Between My Hands” have common themes regarding morality and death. Comment on one such theme and analyze the role it plays in both poems.

In “All These Are Swept Away in One Brief Year,” the narrator explores the fragility of life. He explains that life is nothing more but a one-way march towards death; from the moment we are born, we are driven ever closer to death’s door. The narrator explains that death is unavoidable and inevitable. In this way, the entirety of this first poem captures the inevitably of death; it aims to point out that death is an ever-present and looming reality, one that humans adopt the moment they are born into this world. This idea—of death’s constant presence—is reflected in Quevedo’s other poem, “How You Slip From Between My Hands.” In this second poem, the narrator depicts death almost as a character—one who is intent on following each and every one of us throughout the entirety of our youth. Death climbs the earthen wall to feast upon our heart and youth, to lie in wait for the moment when we cross over. As in the first poem, death is depicted as unavoidable and ever-present. He lurks in the background of our lives and each step we take, every day we live brings us closer to him. In this way, both poems depict the idea of a death as something that is ever-present and as something that we draw nearer to each and every day.