Final Analysis

I'm Afraid, a poem by Maria Mercedes Carranza, taught me a lot about fear, an emotion which I thought I knew plenty about. I never realized how much fear affects all other emotions, and your physical being as well as your mental being. The poem talks about how fear is a primal instinct, and how it naturally takes over the whole body when you are feeling it. It consumes you, your life. Fear consumed Carranza, as she committed suicide only months after this poem was written. Fear affects other emotions, it affected Carranza's depression and her anxiety, which she expresses in the poem. She fears her own self. She says that she she is afraid she will not see another day, not because someone will hurt her, but because she is hurting herself. She is drowning in her own self.

In the beginning of this study, I had a completely different outlook on this poem. At first, I did not even see what she was afraid of or why. I only recognized depression in the poem, I didn't understand that she was afraid of anything, I only thought she was sad and suicidal. I now see there is so much more than that. Her depression stems from her fear, and so does her anxiety. She fears living the sad life she does, she fears having to live another day of pain and hurt. The interview with my father really cleared things up for me. He told me about fear has taken over her life so much that she has the inability to control it. Fear is living her life for her, a mistake that many are making every day. I myself have experienced this. Sometimes I fear the upcoming life I have, and in turn feel anxious, stressed, and sad. I learned the importance of how to break from this way of living life.

The process of examining the poem this way really helped me. The interview was my favorite part of this assignment. To get this outside perspective helped me greatly to widen the horizon of my poem. The order of reading, analysing, interviewing, and analysing again was really affective for me. I hope I can use this process more in the future in my literature studies, it is so helpful. I saw the poem so clearly at the end of this process. Although the poem is short and may seem straightforward, it was so much different than I thought. Instead of seeing only depression and fear, I took away from the poem a message; that we must stop allowing fear to control our lives.

Something in the poem that changed over time for me and I took away at the end was this: "Fear at dawn for inevitably the sun will rise and I’ll have to see it/when the sun sets because it might not come out tomorrow. (Carranza 3-4). When I first read this line, I thought she was simply saying that she wishes to be dead. I was very wrong, however. What she is saying is completely different. Carranza means that she is scared that she might not make it to another day, and she is also scared that she will make it to another day. Her life is so full of fear that nothing, not life nor death, can comfort her and take away this fear. This is very important for anyone who feels trapped or depressed. Fear is what is anchoring them into this position, how can you move while not wishing life nor death? This purgatory is maddening, and Carranza does an amazing job of explaining this. I want help people recognize this, as Carranza has. 

Overall, this project was really positive and amazing for me. I took away so much more from this than I have with any other assignment I have come across. Not only where my eyes opened to the beauty and message of one poem, but there are 30 others I will be experiencing. The 3 presenters on Friday did an amazing job, and I truly did take something away from each poem. The objects given really made the message of each poem stick with me. My object is a small silhouette drawing of a man and his shadow. I chose the shadow as a well-known representation of fear. The truth to this fear is that the shadow is only yourself. You have only yourself to fear, that is the biggest truth I took away from I'm Afraid. You have only your own fear to fear, even though that might sound confusing. The only thing holding people back stems away from the primal nature of our fear. To conquer this in a positive way for our lives is the key to a happy fulfilled life.