Comparing Death in D.H. Lawrence’s The Horse Dealer’s Daughter and Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden

The idea of death can be, and is an enormously disturbing, unknown issue in which many people can have many different opinions. To some individuals, the process of life can progress painstakingly slow, while for others life moves too fast. In the excerpt We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates, a innocent farm boy named Judd Mulvaney has an eye-opening encounter by a brook near his driveway. During this encounter, Judd faces a chain of feelings and emotions that lead to his change of opinion of the issues of life and death, and change as a character. This emblematic imagery of life and death, as well as jumpy, and retrospective tones benefit the development of Judd as an innocent child as he begins to change into a more conscious and aware adult.

Death is something that at some point will come to each of us and has been explored in many forms of literature. “The Raven” and “Incident in a Rose Garden” are two poems that explore common beliefs and misconceptions about death. Though both poems differ in setting, tone, and mood there are surprising similarities in the literary tools they use and in the messages they attempt to convey. The setting and mood establish the tone and feel of a poem. In “The Raven” we are launched into a bleak and dreary winters night where a depressed narrator pines for his dead girlfriend.

‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ are two texts that vary in several different ways but are fundamentally similarly themed, as they both centre on individuals who undergo several catastrophes which lead to their untimely deaths. Whilst it is clear that Miller has made death and suffering inevitable from just the ominous opening of the play - evident by the Loman’s kitchen having ‘three chairs’, in which the number 3 is often associated with bad luck, as opposed to four (the number of people living in the household) which foreshadows the death of a single character later on in the play – Keats also gives an impression of death being inevitable in the poem from the setting of the poem, which is implied to be autumn – the season

At a mere glance, William Faulkner's southern gothic novel, “As I Lay Dying” appears to be a book about a mourning family, who desperately longs to put their mother’s soul to rest in her desired burial ground. Although, Thomas C. Foster's novel “How to read Literature like A Professor” reveals that you do not need a microscope to find hidden literary elements, that aid in developing the novel’s theme and tone it wishes to undertake. After reading “As I lay Dying”, there are many elements that contribute to the overall composition of the book, such as his exemplary usage of symbolism, weather, plotline, and allusions to convey a gruesome tone.

Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.

Death is recognized and handled differently by many cultures. William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying puts insight into how one family in the middle of the Great Depression deals with their mother’s death. Addie’s death characterizes Darl and Cash, illuminating Cash’s need for order and Darl’s hungry curiosity and deep thought. These two men show how grief can affect people differently.

Death is sometimes an apparent factor in mystery literature. The passing of a character has a specific purpose in each story. The deaths can be physical or spiritual in manner. Such is the case for Bowman, the family, and the narrator. In their respective stories, “The Death of a Traveling Salesman,” “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and “The Other Side of the Hedge,” each character has a corporeal or metaphorical death.

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

In Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” and in D.H. Lawrence’s “Odour of Chrysanthemums,” two women were in a situation where death was literally at their feet. In “The Garden Party,” Laura finds herself contemplating the dead body of Mr. Scott, a man of lower class who lived at the bottom of the hill from her house. In “Odour of Chrysanthemums,” Elizabeth finds herself contemplating the dead body of her husband, Walter. Although the relationships these women shared with the dead men were completely opposite, they both had striking similarities in the ways that they handled the situation. Both women ignored the feelings of the families of the deceased, failed to refer to the deceased by name, felt shame in the

In the poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, by Emily Dickinson and “Home Burial”, by Robert Frost, literary elements are used throughout both poems to get the message the authors are trying to portray. One main important literary element that is used to entice the reader, is symbolism, because it helps the authors describe something without actual describing it. Symbolism is also used because it shows how significant an object is. Characterization is also an important literary technique because it, gives the reader an idea on how the character would act, work, and their values in life. Death is a topic that is used in both poems. Also, every character express their opinion about death differently.

Waugh’s satirical novel, The Loved One, follows the lives of Dennis Barlow, an Englishman, and Aimée Thanatogenos and Mr. Joyboy – Americans – each a mortician in his or her own regard. Through his satirical style, characterization and setting, and abrupt transitions, Waugh comments on the self-serving tendencies of humans and the drastic consequences those can have. Through the interactions of Englishmen and Americans, Waugh depicts the cultural differences between those from his home country of England and America. Finally, set against the backdrop of two cemeteries, Waugh entangles death in each character’s lives, with many encountering it or succumbing to it throughout the course of the novel.

Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” is pervaded by the idea that relationships between classes are highly influenced negatively by society. Connie is having this very sexual and passionate relationship with her gamekeeper Oliver Mellors who is of a lower status to her. To many reader’s surprise, Mellors is a man who, as one critic quotes, “remains impervious to the pettiness and

In ‘The Garden Party’, Katherine Mansfield presents the rich to show unawareness of the poor within their neighbourhood in order to contain their happiness. The main character, Laura starts off within a middle class bubble that she has been isolated within all her life. Through her upbringing she has been protected which has resulted in her unawareness of the ‘real’ world. Between them all, the Sheridan family are organising a party, when it takes a turn for the worse. Laura is faced with death. Laura is the only one concerned at this point by the death of Mr. Scott, a local working class man. However, her sister, Jose is not touched by this tragedy. The quote “Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don 't be so absurd” clearly presents the selfishness within her sister’s voice, who is also part of the middle class ‘bubble’ that she is not prepared to break for the sake of anyone, especially not

This is a poignant element presented through conversation within the story as it is exclusively Laura who gains an empathetic understanding, towards the problematic class divisions at the heart of the text. The phonetic dialect within the conversations in The Garden Party, further exemplifies the central theme of class division. In Laura’s conversation with her sibling Laurie, she asks him if he enjoys parties, to which he replies ‘Ra-ther’, a transparent indication of an upper-class dialect which adheres to a formal speech pattern. Through the conversation, Mansfield contrasts the character of Laurie with the working class phonetics of Miss Scott’s sister, whom Laura speaks to at the funeral. ‘I 'm 'er sister miss’ she reassures Laura, in a broken dialogue which reveals her working-class background. This contrast through dialogue in the conversation further supports the perspective that the role of conversation is to provide reality within the story. The phonetic language differentiates the classes and effectively mimics the real speech patterns of working and middle class people. In Miss Scott’s conversation with Laura as she affectionally refers to Laura as ‘young lass’ an informal term which is contrasted earlier in the text, when Laurie dismisses his sister affectionately referring to her as ‘old girl’. ‘Old girl’ is an informal term of endearment used amongst social

Foster begins this chapter with Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party. It is about a girl, Laura, setting up a garden party. Her mother, Mrs. Sheridan let her prepare the garden party for the first time, so she wants to make it the best. While doing the preparations for the party, Laura hears about the recent death of a man in the little cottages down the hill. Because of this, she tries to convince her sister and mother to cancel the party. How could they celebrate when a neighbor just passed away? However, the both of them tell Laura that it is not their problem that someone had died and that it is not worth it to put away all the preparations done for the party. From this, the reader can see that Jose, the sister and Mrs. Sheridan do not really care about the people who are not as fortunate as them. Mrs. Sheridan distracts Laura from the topic by giving her a hat. The garden party starts and is very successful. After it ends, Mr. Sheridan brings up the story about the man that had just died and Mrs. Sheridan decides that they should give the family their leftover food. Laura walks down to the cottages with a big basket of food. She wants to cover herself because she is dressed extravagantly while the other neighbors down the hill are not. Laura goes into the widow’s house and meets the man’s sister in law, Em. She takes her to see the deceased man and Laura cries. After this, Laura leaves and meets her brother, Laurie at the corner of the road. She