Religious Doubt
At its heart, “The Collar” is an allegory of religious doubt. It begins after the speaker has already had a crisis of faith. He recounts an out-loud, raving internal struggle, during most of which he expresses doubt. In particular, he is fed up by a life he finds constrained, unpleasurable, and in fact, sad. However, while he has strong doubts, they are eventually overcome by his other half—the second voice in the poem, sometimes referred to by critics as “the will.” The will to follow God, then, overcomes the heart’s naturally self-serving rebellion.
The Will vs. The Heart
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.
