“The Dungeon” Analysis

The poem “The Dungeon” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells the audience about the

effects that prison has on a person’s well-being and the pain they experience. However, later in

the poem, the prisoner discovers their worth and finally feels liberated. As I read this poem,

there were a few words or phrases that I found unclear. The first word I found confusing is

“ministrations” in the second stanza, which I found means “the provision of assistance or care”.

Another word I found confusing is “minstrelsy” which is the occupation of a minstrel, a

medieval singer.

There are many examples of imagery throughout the poem that help to create images in

my mind and make the poem more interesting. The phrase “savage faces” in the first stanza

emphasizes the effects that prison has on people and how hopeless they feel. The phrases

“steam and vapors of his dungeon” and “lamp’s dismal twilight” creates a dark and eerie image

of a prison in my mind, which gives the poem a sad tone. I think this represents prisoners

feeling ignored and alone, because the poem goes on to say the prisoner’s soul is surrounded

by evil and becoming deformed by prison, with no one there to help them.

The second stanza, however, takes on more of a positive tone, because the prisoner is

healed by nature and love. The line that says, “melodies of woods, and winds, and waters” is

easy to imagine in my mind because of how relaxing those melodies are. A final phrase of

imagery I found is “bursting into tears” because I can visualize this happening and imagine the

relief and happiness the prisoner feels. I can imagine how happy they are now that they know
their worth and can finally feel free. This illustrates the Romantic theme of individualism

because the prisoner finally discovered their moral worth and felt liberation at last.

`The poem never specifies who the speaker is; however, I feel that the speaker is the

prisoner and he’s talking about his experiences in the third person. The speaker seems to know

a lot about what the prisoner is going through and seems to have lived through it himself. In the

first stanza, the speaker is expressing the struggles prisoners go through, and how society

ignores them because they’re deemed as criminals. He emphasizes how a prisoner’s soul turns

evil and deforms, causing them to become completely hopeless. Then, in the second stanza, he

discusses how the prisoner heals after being released from prison and his soul heals through

nature and love. The audience can imagine how much he’s healed by reading the final lines that

say, “His angry spirit healed and harmonized by the benignant touch of Love and Beauty.”

These lines clearly showed that his soul is at peace, and he’s not suffering anymore. Again, this

illustrates the Romantic theme of individualism; even though the prisoner was suffering in

prison, he escaped and discovered his moral worth, and felt completely liberated and free.

Through my analysis of the poem, I have come to better understand the poem and the

importance of each line. I think that even though “The Dungeon” is about a prisoner’s

experiences in prison, the prison could also symbolize a person being trapped by their own

thoughts, and their thoughts are eating away at them until finally, the weight is lifted off their

shoulders and they feel free and healed from all of that pain. A general experience that I can

relate to this idea is feeling negative about myself and feeling like I can’t do anything, until

finally I have a major breakthrough and achieve something big, and the weight is lifted off my

shoulders because I discovered my worth and I feel free, knowing I can do anything.
 The poem raised several emotions for me including anger, sadness, and happiness. First,

I was angry when the speaker was discussing why prison is believed to be the best way to deal

with criminals. I, along with the speaker, was frustrated that a more constructive way has never

been proposed to help people learn from mistakes. Next, I was sad when the speaker was

expressing all the harmful effects that prison had on them, how they felt so alone and ignored

by society. This concept of prisoners feeling isolated is especially shown in the lines that say,

“uncomforted and friendless solitude, groaning and tears”. Fortunately, the poem had a much

happier tone in the final stanza, and I was happy when they were finally able to heal from their

experiences and be at peace. This poem definitely changed my perspective about prisoners’

experiences because it gave insight to how they feel, and all the negative effects that prison can

have on a person’s well-being.

Or, maybe the prisoner wasn’t released from prison. I think the second stanza may be about

the prisoner’s life after death and they live a much happier life, free of pain and suffering.
Maybe the “prisoner” wasn’t in prison at all; I think the prison may symbolize a mental illness

such as depression. The “prisoner” feels trapped in his own mind and he feels completely alone