An Echo Sonnet: To an Empty Page

Catarina Sousa
Mr. Perez
AP English
7 November 2011
An Echo Sonnet: To an Empty Page
The sonnet, “To an Empty Page,” is a well written poem in the English sonnet form. This story can be perceived in many different ways. My perception of the story being told is about a man who is trying to find himself. Along this journey to nowhere, he doubts his own life and the people around him. This would include his family, which he doubts would even shed a tear to find him dead, and possibly his friends. To describe death he uses sleep. The symbolism of sleep in this sonnet causes us to believe that the narrator is in a deep depression. Once this hits someone, they question everyone around them, especially their friends and family. Also, they think of death and truly ask, who would cry? The title fits this sonnet completely well. I believe that it’s called “An Empty Page” solely for the purpose that everyone’s life is a to-do list. By that, one they accomplish what they had to do, it disappears from the imaginary sheet of paper. Thus, leaving an empty page once it’s time to go. The narrator seems too comfortable with death, therefore to consider the narrator suicidal isn’t questionable. His attitude and the tone he gives off is scared. It almost seems as if he is looking for a way out of life. Sleep or probable death is leading him closer to the edge.