In the poem Thou Blind Man's Mark, written by Sir Philip Sidney, it tells us of a story of a man blinded by his desire for extraneous possessions. The speaker in the whole poem speaks to desire as if it is a person by insulting, boasting and patronizing it which provides for a major shift in the poem. Sir Philip Sidney uses alliteration, extended metaphors, and repetition to emphasize this shift in character of the speaker.
Habitually, the speaker emphasizes certain sentences using alliteration that show the speaker’s disgust with “desire”. They write how desire is a “cradle of causeless care” and a “web of will” that is neverending. The speaker with these alliterations accentuates how their desire has brought them nothing but unwanted concern for objects of jealousy and unstableness with how long this period of their life would last. The alliteration emphasizes how the speaker credits the desire to be in their life. Nothing but intrusive emotions and thoughts take over their life. The accented “c” also gives a harsh tone to the quatrain while the “w” is a more smooth sound which contributes to the conflicted feelings that they should be unsympathetic to desire but also it is something they brought on themselves so they can not be fully agitated.
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They write how they have seemingly “bought” desire that has cost him his sanity. In return all the speaker gets is useless emotions and considerations. Having the extended metaphor be about a transaction for desire keeps with the theme that this problem of desiring useless things is self-brought. It is the consumer who buys the product and no one else. This metaphor also puts to attention the problems brought by hyper-focus on desire and how the speaker should fixate on the improvement of his mind and