Essay: Explore “Echo Sonnet, To an Empty Page” by Robert Pack: Find Inspiration in Fear of Mortality

In the poem an Echo Sonnet, To an Empty Page, Robert Pack introduces a narrator and his alter ego who alternates questions and answers that subsequently reveals the poet’s prospects and attitudes toward life itself. The narrator, or “the voice,” seems like a frightened man who is afraid of living his life due to the fact that he fears the future and the inevitable aftermath of his mortality. The alter ego, or “the echo,” answers the narrator’s questions in a way that encourages him to live life in a certain perspective. By utilizing the traditional form of a shakespearean sonnet and the effect of an “echo,” Pack is able to portray a cleaner and more precise message to the readers. Furthermore various literary techniques such as symbols, metaphors, and images add to the meaning of the poem and justify that no matter how frightening life seems to be, it is important to take a leap of faith.
The voice can be considered the impractical aspect of the author’s persona, or it can simply represent people in general on their fears and insecurities of the future. By having the voice divulge his concerns and problems, it allows the echo to answer each question immediately with a single word. Having the echo answer in such a way allows readers to be deeply moved emotionally in a more rhythmic and accessible way. In the first quatrain, the voice begins by asking broad questions on starting a life out of the blue. As the title of the poem suggests, the echo provides answers to the empty page, which is an implicit metaphor for the voice. When the voice is asking specific questions, the echo only provides one answer which sequentially gives a stronger impact to the voice. For example, the echo answers with “Start” to the voice’s first question, “How from emptiness can I make a start?” The echo is emphasizing that it does not matter how the voice feels or, the most important thing to do is to take the first step.
In the second quatrain, a reference is made with a leaf as both the voice and the echo depict it’s final fate in nature through visual imagery. In addition to the naturalistic symbols, Pack also writes the poem in the way a person thinks when there is something bothering them. When people have any problems or worries, they tend to think about it in their heads and try to answer their own questions with their own answers. To the dreaded answer of the echo, the voice asks again what is the purpose of life if life is “a long disease?” By having “ease” rhyme with “disease,” the echo again stresses that whatever grief or negative aspects that appear in life can in fact be sealed through death. Some may even argue that death itself is not all that bad and that it is necessary. The echo repeats the ending sound of enemy, which sounds like the word me. This appears to answer his question, as if to say that the greatest enemy the voice faces is in fact, himself.
In the third quatrain, the poem reaches a climax when the voice asks direct questions about death and the future. The voice is a bit surprised on how the echo answered his previous questions with a placid attitude. The voice inquires if it is so nice that he should “end in sleep,” or die. To the question, echo says, “leap,” without offering any other explanation. Since death is the central idea of this sonnet, we know that we must die and that our fate is already sealed due to the inevitable. Furthermore, “dark,” and “night” which are inevitable symbols of death, are to be “weeped” for. The echo does not idealize death nor praise the uncertainty that the future holds. Although he will also “weep” at death, he is able to make the contradiction because of the voice, since the “dark” of the future is not entirely composed of death.
The final couplet provides the voice’s resolution, which is a shift, to take a leap of faith. By declaring, “I feel your calling leads me where I go,” he decides that he would follow the voice of his heart, his true ego, to whatever end. Pack adds a twist by having the voice question again the positive outcomes of following the echo’s voice. To this question, the echo says “No,” meaning he too does not see through future, and that he must also take a leap. The voice and echo comprise one soul of the poet who decides to plunge into the dark ocean of future, even though he knows it would end in his death. One thing is for sure: the “page” will not be “empty” anymore.