The Theme Analysis of the Poem Reincarnation
...theme. The real theme is about cowboy culture and how one cowboy, who is smarter than the other, has fun ridiculing or insulting the other cowboy who asked the question What is reincarnation. Cowboys are not smart from book learning but, from keenly observing the real world they live in. The west was simple and plain with no fancy frills or high society. This accounts for McRae not using large words he knew that the poem must be kept simple. The words are ordinary and simple yet, factual. “Yer life has reached its end”, “Lay you in a padded box.”; “the box goes in a hole” (1092). These lines show the simplicity, character and facts of the cowboy culture. McRae kept the verse metered and in rhyme this is in keeping with the cowboy culture. The poem has just two simple characters with no description of either one. Everyone should have a image of a cowboy that they can relate to. This poem would not be the same if the characters were not cowboys. The narrator explains death simply by saying they comb a persons hair put them in a padded box then put them in a hole in the ground. These plain simple statements can be understood by the other cowboy but, still convey the facts to the reader. The only mention of reincarnation is stated in lines that state when the clods, dirt, and box melt and the body decays the person starts on their transformation ride. The next things to be mentioned in true cowboy fashion are the steps of the transformation. First a flower grows then; a horse wanders by and eats the flower. The horse then passes what it does not need. The narrator then states a key element of the theme. He says what was passed and lying on the ground was once the person who was buried. The narrator states if he should go ...