The Collar: Analysis

A. The form of this poem follows no known theme or style, but instead appears
to be freely structured as the writer intended it. It does an acceptable job of
showing the increasing anger of the speaker.
B. The tone of the piece is one of a speaker who is fed up and angry with what
the thing (in this case, religion) has given him and is behaving as such.
C. The diction in the piece talks of the ways in which the speaker has been
bound by religion holding him captive no matter how he tries to leave.
D. Imagery is contained in statements such as Forsake thy cage, thy rope of
sands and other phrases which seek to contribute to the idea of captivity as
presented by the author. All of it goes towards creating the bonds which hold
the speaker.
E. Figurative language is mainly composed of metaphors in this passage.
Basically all metaphors in the piece go to explain the items holding the
speaker. The speaker also utilizes rhetorical questions to show his discontent
over the situation he finds himself in.
F. Rhythmically there appears to be very little pattern or form to the poem, as
discussed in part A above. There are broken rhymes interspersed throughout
the piece that seem to, in my opinion, lend very little to the meaning as a
whole.
G. Rope of sands and others all go to symbolize metaphorical bonds holding
the speaker in place. The poem is practically littered with symbols all trying
to convey that same point.
H. Words such as fruit and wine seem to have Biblical connotations, which
would flow logically with the ending of the poem where it becomes apparent
that the problem the speaker is addressing is his religion.