Speculation of Keats's "This Living Hand"

By Keats's usage of the visual images–living hand and heart–and the kinesthetic images–hold and grasping–in his poem, we are able to understand what the speaker is going through, like pain or death, along with the things that are probably happening in his/her life, like a relationship problem, suggesting the experience that when we as humans are near our death, we care more about life because we know that it's all going to end. With the coming of death, we close in on our lives and mostly look at the good times; yet, there are those who look at the bad, mainly the bad that others had caused them, just like what the speaker in this poem did. Yet, in the end, we will try to forgive that someone if he/she turns around and realizes that maybe he/she did cause harm.

Keats is conveying the experience of dying; yet, the speaker is trying to send out a message to someone. The speaker is somehow blaming that someone for having caused the speaker pain. When the speaker starts out with the images of "this living hand, now warm and capable/of earnest grasping"(1-2), he is suggesting a feeling of liveliness and determination from the "warm and capable"(1) and a feeling of strength from the "earnest grasping"(2).  Yet, the speaker goes on to mention the image of a heart, saying "thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood"(5), evoking a feeling of revenge or regret–revenge from the speaker's point and regret from whomever the speaker is sending the message to. And with these images, it seems as though the speaker is only concentrating on the bad that that person had caused him and maybe even putting some blame on that person, for the speaker did say in the line before that he will "haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights"(4).

Yet, in the end, the speaker is willing to forgive that someone whom he is believe is in the wrong. He says “I hold it towards you”(8), suggesting a feeling of forgiveness if only that someone realizes that he/she is truly wrong at what he/she did. This will bring about life to the speaker again, though maybe not literally, but the speaker would’ve been happy if he were to die that way, knowing that the bad did somehow work out to be a good thing in his life.