“Auto Wreck” by Karl Shapiro

There are many valuable life lessons offered in novels, some might be obvious and others complex to understand. However, in the book Spare Parts by Joshua Davis there are many small lesson, though they are so exceptional significant. Throughout the book the author, Joshua Davis, provided the reader with three meaningful lessons, which are: team work is imperative, people are capable of achieving anything with support from others and a creative mind, and finally, that determination is the key success.

A “survivor car” is what the newspapers called it, did not stop such notice; gathering from the darkness a moment of miracle, and then disappear for the next bend. Michaelist wasn’t even sure of the facts – he told the press about the incident. The yellow car the one going toward new york, approximating beyond, hurried back to myrtle’s location, and abruptly change target to the nearest obstacle in the road, colliding in a big speed and intensity, surrounding the road with metallic parts of a wrecked car.

In “On Natural Death,” Thomas appeals to the readers by contemplating the subject of death with an academic approach that includes facts, data, and information. Thomas successfully transforms death from an awkward, emotional subject to a more comfortable intellectual one. This engages the readers by placing contemplation of death and dying within the confines of a more manageable and rational context. His gradual exhumation of death eases the audience into pondering the subject in the absence of emotional stress. The essay transitions from the death of an elm tree to that of a mouse. This is followed by Thomas giving a significant amount of attention to a scientific explanation of death, and then finally the description of the near death experience of a human. This use of an academic appeal moves the audience to a comfort zone with the subject of death and circumvents the common response of avoidance. The reader is simultaneously desensitized to the gravity of subject matter and given permission to consider death and dying without the normal societal negative stigma associated with the subject.

In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.

Owen uses Imagery as another method to convey the brutality of war and also as a means of contrast to show his life before and after. In the third stanza he creates a picture of blood being poured away; “poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” and he uses metaphorical language to emphasis the point that he nearly bled to death as you cannot literally pour the blood out of your veins.

The theme of loss is portrayed similarly in the two poems ‘Disabled’ and ‘Out, out-’. Both of these poems are about the protagonist dealing with physical loss as they both experience an accident. Both Wilfred Owen and Robert Frost manage to mesmerize their audience’s attention, and also sympathize for the protagonists’ misfortune. They do this by the use of many literary techniques which are obvious at times, but some are very subtle, such as similes, metaphors, personification, and contrasts.

Death is a topic that unites all of humanity. While it can be uncomfortable to think about, confronting death in unavoidable. “Dying” addresses that discomfort and universal unwillingness to consider the inevitability of death. Pinsky’s use of imagery, symbolism, and tone create a poetic experience that is like death, something every reader can relate to. In “Dying,” Pinsky describes how people are oblivious and almost uncaring when it comes to the thought of death. Pinsky is trying to convince the reader that they shouldn’t ignore the concept of death because life is shorter than it seems.

mother’s death I can remember everyone who was in the stands that day...” This reference to the narrator’s vivid memory and the detailed depiction of the event shows the gravity of the situation and allows the reader to fully grasp the impact that the accident had on both the protagonist and the narrator. This act of bizarre violence is used masterfully in the author’s recount of his life. It shows how hard it is for a young boy to lose the only parent he ever knew and it also shows how hard it is for a child to be implicated in an event where someone close to the child has been unintentionally killed.

The beginning of any thought provoking essay will hook its audience using a form of pathos. “Two of his sons returned home from the battlefield whole and healthy. The third, however, came home suffering multiple seizures a day”-(Rorabacher). The quote generates sympathy within us making us yearn to see a welcoming outcome and leaving the audience hooked. Eli Hager’s article follows a similar route informing us that “The state of Missouri sent Harris to the penitentiary in Boonvilee, 250 miles from his home and baby daughter”-(Hager). Again we sympathize with the loss of a family, but not all of the articles used grievance to hook us. In the “Quiet Alarm” the audience is informed of a vaudeville performer who performed deadly stunts involving hatchets, pins, and guns on himself to generate shockwaves in the audience. From these examples we identify how our emotions lure us into these texts.

In this essay I intend to explore the narrative conventions and values, which Oliver Smithfield presents in the short story Victim. The short story positions the reader to have negative and sympathetic opinion on the issues presented. Such as power, identity and bullying. For example Mickey the young boy is having issues facing his identity. It could be argued that finding your identity may have the individual stuck trying to fit in with upon two groups.

Americans have an increasing variety of choices to make during everyday life. Although this abundance of choice appears to be liberating, it is actually overwhelming and creates a high amount of stress and pressure on Americans. The abundance of choices combined with the unavailability of resources to sustain these choices creates a large deficit of happiness in American society. The essay “When it’s all too much” by Barry Schwartz brings fourth the idea of an overabundance of choices in America leading to widespread unhappiness. “Date Line Delhi” by Barbra Ehrenreich entails on how the outsourcing of American jobs, both intellectual and menial, is affecting American society negatively. The third essay, “Mismeasuring Poverty” goes into how the government skews the “poverty line” in order to make it appear it has been consistent over time, when in reality it has increased significantly in the past few decades. The overabundance of choices available to people in modern day America combined with a lack of resources to aid in sustaining this amount of choice, creates an escalation in the decrease of quality of life in America and the overall downfall of the “American dream”.

Fear is also generated in this piece of propaganda in that it plays on the emotions of the viewer by making them aware of what may be left behind if they die by a thoughtless and preventable accident. This further prompts safe driving, that it reveals to the viewer real life accidents, and promotes concern to the viewer. It also gives a sense of pity for the child that has been abandon by its deceased parents.

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond gives you an in depth look at societies you may or may not be familiar with and shows you the secrets to their success or failure using his personal 5-point framework. I enjoyed this book and thought he made a lot of good points and had convincing evidence to back it up. While reading you could really tell he knew a lot about the areas he discussed because of the depth he went into with details and descriptions. One complaint I would have about the book is the length he went to in the detailed descriptions, at some points I felt he went too far and got a little wordy and with as much as he gave you are left with almost no questions or curiosity. There were a few terms he uses in the book like

Alliteration is prevalent in most of the poems in What the Living Do. Howe uses alliteration to bring attention to the line of poetry and her word choices are meant to evoke a response from the reader. For example, in the poem, “The Promise,” alliteration is used to further the themes of gender and loss, as the narrator states “Dad was drunk again and dangerous” (Howe 54). The alliteration of “dad,” “drunk,” and “dangerous” bring the reader’s attention to this line and places emphasis on the idea of the narrator and her brother sharing this moment (line 13). Utilizing this emphasis, the narrator is able to highlight the loss of her brother as no one else has those shared memories with the narrator. Through alliteration, the theme of loss is clearly expressed by talking about the brother who has passed and who she has shared memories with.

In the poem “Poem about Police Violence,” the use of the word accident plays an important role in the overall interpretation of the poem. Today, most people, when asked to define accident, will say something along the lines of “an event that occurs without intention.” However, the OED defines an accident as “something that is present but not necessarily so, and therefore non-essential” (“Accident,” def. 1). This definition is much more impactful in the context of Jordan’s poem, especially in the lines “that the killing of Arthur Miller on a Brooklyn/ street was just a “justifiable accident” again” (23-24). By using the OED’s definition of accident, it can lead one to the interpretation that even though a man was killed, and that it keeps happening