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Analysis Of Paul Kalanithi 's ' When Breath Becomes Air '

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How can one possibly prepare for the inevitability of death an When it comes to the topic of death, most people avoid discussing it and pretend that life will continue forever. They refrain from They refrain from planning for it or realizing that it will happen at one point or another. Time is a constraint. People tell themselves that they will achieve something in a certain amount of time which isn’t true because time will truly limit them. Most people do not achieve their dreams because they do not account for death. Instead of living in the moment, they just carefully continue their plans. There is always tension between planning for the future and just living in the pure moment. No one can know when they will cease to exist and many …show more content…

He found himself going through the stages of grief “...the ‘Denial- Anger- Bargaining- Depression- Acceptance cliche- but I had done it all backward (page 161).” He accepted his diagnosis that he was going to die but then slipped into a depression. After the depression, his cancer treatments began to work so he began to feel confident that he would continue living for a long time. When it was discovered that the treatments did not actual work, Kalanithi began to deny his death. He had gotten excited that he would live for a few more years but it was not true. He wished for someone to give him the specific amount of time that he would continue living, he stated, “Tell me three months, I’d spend time with family. Tell me one year, I’d write a book. Give me ten years, I’d get back to treating diseases(page 161).” He began to understand that one must live in the moment to fulfill their life 's’ purpose.
As a doctor, Kalanithi saw death daily and tried to understand why the idea of it. In the novel, he explains death in different perspectives and how he begins to understand it. For instance, he describes death in the cadaver as a “...medical rite of passage and a trespass on the sacrosanct, engendering a legion of feelings: from revulsion, exhilaration, nausea, frustration, and awe to, as time passes, the mere tedium

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