The collar

The speaker’s two sides and voices suggest another theme to the poem. There is an internal struggle between the heart and the will. The heart is inflamed by passion, as we can see in the first voice’s melodramatic complaints about a barren life. The will, however, knows that patience is required to reap rewards. Here, Hebert suggests that the heart and the will must both be a part of religious devotion. In fact, the will must convince the heart to love what is truly God—not the world of earthly pleasures, but the kingdom of God.