A frequent comment on TDE is "Your poem has fourteen lines, but it doesn't really want to be a sonnet."
But this poem, which is all about contrasts, exploits the form to strengthen those contrasts. The main set, of course, is the octet's superficial "act", "role", and "facade" vs. the sextet's true and hidden feelings; but those contrasts are strengthened by the octet's color, motion, chattiness, and gaity ("flowers", "smiles", "jokes and japes", "red", "capers") vs. "blackly hunkers down and whines". I'm probably reading too much into this, but the "grapes" in L1 immediately put me in mind of Silenus/Bacchus, which made the sextet's hound all the more funereal, if not directly parallel with Cerberus.
One of the things I like most about this poem is the fact that the contrasts aren't perfect. Despite the narrator's desperate efforts to maintain the flimsy facade of gaity, death still creeps into the octet ("rictus...grin"), and even the hidden grief of the sextet is really not the narrators' deepest feeling: he'd rage, if only there were a concrete "enemy" to rage against.
I prefer the poet's ordering of the couplet to Rhina's proposed switch, because I think the current ending beautifully encapsulates the narrator's feelings of impotence and uncertainty.
Julie Stoner
[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited November 30, 2004).]
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