Analysis of Colm Tóibin's Short Story, A Journey Essay

The theme of this novella is to look at the good you do in life and how it carries over after your death. The moral of the book is; "People can make changes in their lives whenever they really want to, even right up to the end."

The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death” (Rajneesh, n.d.). This short story narrates about a woman named Martha Bes that apparently died. The main character is debating whether or not she is alive or dead. Also she goes about asking what God wanted her to do. “The book of Martha” written by Octavia Butler uses literary elements to present the overall message what is God’s purpose in life.

The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched

Portrayed through a frame story, a story inside a story, the father tells his daughter the of

My first art portfolio, my favorite keychain, my broken bike…1.2.3. No one ever speaks to you about your own ending. How you die is left up to your own imagination. To you, your death can maybe either be due to a glorious, heroic act in which you met a righteous end or a pathetic closing to what you may believe to be a pretty uneventful existence. No one speaks about endings in general, though. Endings only tend to make us feel anything but content. Yet we dream on, foolishly writing silly ends to our lives, forgetting that the ends we create may be plausible one day. College, family, career…1.2.3. My breaths get weary, my heart slows from boisterous thuds to faint, lethargic thumps. Bright rays gleam above, showering me in what is meant to be warmth, but all I feel is cold. My freezing limbs waft slowly within the water, my feet dangling below, my hair flowing behind. My mother’s laughter, my father’s tears of joy, my friends’ bright smiles…1.2.3. I never dreamt my foolish imagination would collide with the inevitable so soon. My days of compiling were over, my good days, my sad days, my sweet, sweet mundane days, would soon come to an end…Air, air, air, air,

“ ...For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14) Words of truth from the book of truth. We have no idea how long our lives will be on this earth. This concept is brought to light even more in the two short stories we will be discussing, “The Story of an Hour” and “The Interlopers”. These two stories share some similarities and some differences that we will be looking at. These two stories show us a very important concept… “The Story of an Hour” and “The Interlopers” are perfect examples of how the expected does not always happen.

¨Dad however, wouldn’t talk about Mary Charlene...He was the one who found her body in the crib, and Mom, couldn't believe how much it shook him up…‘he was in shock or something, cradling her stiff little body in his arms... he screamed like a wounded animal’...He started having dark moods,staying out late and coming home drunk and losing jobs,¨(Walls 28).

‘The Grave’ by Katherine Anne Porter is a story that illustrates the initiation of a child from innocence to experience. The underlying theme behind the central idea of innocence to experience is the cycle of life and death and rebirth. This theme is illustrated in the young protagonist, Miranda, and her epiphany on the concept of the cycle of life and rebirth. The dominant tone in ‘The Grave’ is melancholic, and that tone is created through the language elements of symbolism, diction, and imagery. The story’s tone is also supported by the fiction element character.

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

Over the course of human events, men and women of all ages fought and worked relentlessly to better their lives and their families' lives as well. Despite the arduous efforts, each and every one of those people ended up or will end up exactly the same: buried six feet under the ground. Life and death are the largest eventualities to happen to humans as a whole, yet most sentient beings, particularly humans, are afraid of death, due mainly to the natural fear of the unknown. "Numbers" by Mary Cornish seems to beg the question of what does it mean to truly be alive. Being alive is to expand horizons and to feel what life has to offer or simply to be happy, but in layman's terms, life is more than just being born, surviving and finally dying.

Upon everyone’s reunification in heaven they realize that the one thing that paradise is missing is life. They decide that they need to be reborn in order to experience the beauty that is living. Through all of their struggles, they have experienced a myriad of emotions. They have hated life, and yearned for death. Now they look forward towards life with a changed and renewed outlook.

The first part of this paper will explain the numerous editing and reading methods need to understand Migrant mother. The rule of thirds is a way to align a photograph to draw attention to Thompson in the photograph. Consequently, breaking up the photographs into distinct sections draws attention to details. Symmetry and patterns are presented within the photograph allowing the reader to follow distinct patterns such as the position of her children at her sides. Moreover, leading lines are natural lines within the photograph which attract the reader's eyes along the photo. In addition, balancing elements in the photograph reduce the ability for a picture to feel empty by filling the void in the scene. Lange utilizes this technique by using

The human experience is an interesting concept, as it is both unique to every person yet also so inherently the same among all. Before a human leaves the earth, she or he has likely experienced all the ups-and-downs of life of life, love, and loss. However, the variables in each of these universal concepts is seemingly entirely random from person to person. This is the story about one girl and the variables that taught her life’s universal truths.

You are about to be taken on a journey as I tell of two short stories, “A Worn Path” and “I Used to Live Here Once”. One story will keep you in suspense wondering about this little old ladies purpose of walking a dark path, while the other story seems to be taking the character back in time to find she is only having an after death experience. As you read of the two stories, you will find they are similar in the fact that both have a symbolism of death.

Imagery is a one literary tool used by the author in the novel. The author uses short sentences to bring out the prominent element of motion pictures which was also prominent at the time. Fact and fiction are continually intermixed in the novel with the use of prose. The prose form of writing which is popular in journalism, however, seems to contradict his style of writing which uses both history and fiction which is ironical. Repetition is also a common element in the novel to give an allure of the recurring element of history. The author also uses a vivid description of the characters in the novel allowing us into the