The Lesson by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Read these lines from the poem.

For oft from the darkness of hearts and lives

Come songs that brim with joy and light,

What is the effect of the imagery in these lines?

A. It conveys how music transforms the speaker’s attitude from depressed to uplifted.

B. It explains how songs reinforce the speaker’s belief in the importance of staying positive.

C. It expresses the speaker’s viewpoint that the best music is inspired by suffering.

D. It emphasizes the speaker’s perspective that life is a painful experience.

In his poem "The Lesson", Paul Laurence Dunbar talks of how to turn sorrow into joy by means of his own composition. Bringing himself out of his own depressed state, he decides to make his own composition in the hope that it may help turn another man happy.

The use of imagery in the lines from the fourth stanza signifies the poet's belief that joy can be brought out of "dark[....] hearts and lives". He feels that the wore pain and sufferings bring the most "joy and light" in a man's life. Like the joyful sound of the mockingbird's passionate song coming "out of the gloom of the cypress grove", he could also make his own composition to cheer someone as depressed as he has felt. Amidst the suffering and sorrow of one's life, there is always a possibility of joy emanating from underneath the pain.