Tithonus : As a Dramatic Monologue – ISC Rhapsody Solutions

 Tennyson’s “Tithonus” as a Dramatic Monologue :

Question : Discuss the poem as a dramatic monologue.

Answer:  A dramatic monologue is a poem written in the first person from a fictional characters perspective. The main function of dramatic monologue is to explore a character psychology through their speech. Dramatic monologue expresses the mental complexities in perfect lyrical language. It is a poetic soliloquy in which the speaker reveals his own character. Usually there is only one speaker, addressing another silent listener, who does not speak but take part in the development of the poem. The presence of this listener make the monologue – dramatic monologue.

     The poem  “Tithonus” by Tennyson is in the form of dramatic monologue. Here Tithonus, a mythological figure, is endowed with the divine gift of immortality by the goddess of dawn – Aurora, speaks his mind and reveals the acute pain and suffering of his old age and decrepit state of his life in a perfect poetic language.

     “Tithonus” is a dramatic monologue in which Tithonus is the one who speaks in the poem. The Goddess’s presence can be understood from the way Tithonus comments about her gesture and movements.

     Like a typical dramatic monologue, Tithonus in the poem, speaks his mind of melancholy caused by the immortality of his life and the loss of his youth and beauty.

     Tithonus remembers himself as a handsome young and glorious man that he was chosen by the goddess of dawn – Eos. This made him feel like he was a special person, like a God – 

   “To his great heart none other than a God !” 

    Inflated with the pleasure of being  “chosen” by a gorgeous goddess, Tithonus saw himself as a God. He wanted to become immortal like a God to fulfill his desire for her forever. He asks the goddess Eos to “give (him) immortality”.

    The goddess granted his request for immortality happily without realising its consequences. She made a critical mistake when she granted Tithonus immortality without perpetual youth to go along with it. Now Tithonus has infinite years of life but his youth has failed him.

      He says – 

   “I wither slowly in thine arms”.

     Old age is taking away the strength from his body while he is decaying to her arms. His old age made him to appear like a “white – haired shadow” whom is roaming  like a ghost in  “ever – silent spaces of the East”. 

    He states his condition to the Goddess as – 

    “……. thy strong Hours, indignant work’d their wills /

    And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me”.

        Tithonus says that the boon of immortality has become a curse to him, as he is  “marr’d” (or disfigured) and  “wasted”  by the long, merciless passage of time. The time worked against Tithonus as it could not end him but ruined him and left him “maim’d” (or injured) forever. He lost the charm of life but Aurora’s beauty and youth remain undiminished. He longs for death to be emancipated from this gift. He says – 

    “Me only cruel immortality/

   Consumes;  ……”

     He regards himself as the only unfortunate creature who suffer acutely owing to the gift of immortality.

    In an elegiac tone, Tithonus contrasts his own old age with the immortal beauty and youth of the goddess Aurora. He has immortal old age, while she has immortal youth. He laments that all his youth and beauty have vanished with the passing of time.

    “To dwell in presence of immortal youth,/

    Immortal age beside immortal youth.”

      Tithonus can not continue to enjoy the companionship of Aurora anymore. He has lost the zest for life. He is dead to the world of pleasure. He no longer feels the youthful sensation, which Aurora’s youth and beauty inspired in him earlier, his blood, does no longer glow with passion at the sight of her beautiful cheeks and shoulders. He no longer desire to live. Therefore he pleads with Aurora not to let him remain in his present plight and take back her gift of immortality so that he may die like other human beings. 

      The poem is a dramatic monologue as the goddess of dawn is presumably present before Tithonus, he address all his words to the goddess. The presence of the goddess and the conversational style of the poem adds to the dramatic elements to the speech of the single speaker. 

    We get insights into his mental state and emotions as he oscillates between memories of his passionate youth and his current misery and decay.

    In response to his plea of death, Aurora’s eyes are blurred with tears. She can not help him with the withdrawal of the gift of immortality bestowed upon him, for divine gift once granted can not  be taken back. Tithonus understands that Aurora is helpless, she can not liberate him from this gift.

     He weeps to realise that Aurora does not have the power to grant him death and send him back to earth to die like other mortals. 

  He laments to realise that the gift of immortality has proved to be a curse to him. He sheds tears and utters frantically that none should transgress the boundary, the law of nature that says – all mortals must one day die. Tithonus tried to go beyond the “goal of ordinance” or the natural limit of human life and suffers the consequences.

    Tithonus wonders why should a man try to trespass beyond the reasonable limit of life, where everyone should stop and do not cross this limit. 

      The poem is a dramatic monologue, here Tithonus expresses his own state of mind and analyses it in such a way that Aurora seems to be present with him and listening to his pathetic words and reacting to them accordingly.

      In the last stanza of the poem Tithonus dramatically expresses his envious feelings for the men living in this  “dark” mortal world. He says the goddess not to keep him in her East as his feet tremble when he finds himself at her cold threshold. On the other hand, a look at the steam floating from the homes of mortal men  makes him envious of them.

   “Of happy men that have the power to die /

   And grassy barrows of the happier dead”.

     As he longs for death but can not die and suffers the pain eternally. On the other hand these mortal men do not have to suffer eternal life without permanent youth because they have the “power to die”. 

      This way the poem explores all these complex emotions of the speaker and proved to be a dramatic monologue.