Essay on Confronting Death in Poetry

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” (Mark Twain). This quote from the famous American writer is the basis for what became one of the hardest ideas to comprehend, death. Death has always been a complex term, causing one to struggle with what the true definition is. It is also hard to wrap your mind around what does it truly mean to die. These are the questions we long for the answer. Whether we acknowledge it or not, death has always been feared by many. Death remains an impossible question, one that has been unexplained since beginning of time. Even though dying is a natural, we as a human race still fear it. What can be done to defeat this never-ending battle? According to Montaigne’s “To Philosophize is to Learn to Die” and Cory Taylor’s “Questions for Me About Dying” we can overcome this by living to the fullest, living with no regrets, living a legacy, and lastly not fearing the inevitable. If you want to conquer the question of life, live in the moment.

Death is the most inevitable and unknown aspect of life. It is unescapable, and by most of today’s population, it is feared in the utmost regard. Our materialistic views and constant desertion of religious ideals has forced our society to view death as an ultimate end. Socrates and St. Augustine’s views on death differ from many views on the subject in 2017, however, for their time, these men had the power to influence a plethora of individuals with their theories. For Socrates, death should never be feared and should be considered a blessing if our souls were to ascend to heaven, or death could be an extensive slumber without any dreaming whatsoever. With

Owen and Frost convey extreme experiences and feelings very powerfully and evoke it in a way for us the reader to imagine clearly. In Disabled, Owen conveys the image of death very vividly with immense use of imagery writing 'He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,' this darkness is referring to the sense that the soldier's life is interminable to him now. Owen is trying to tell us that this soldier's life has been cut short by the war and that he cannot be the same individual he was perhaps five to ten years earlier. Another example of strong imagery in Disabled which conveys extreme experiences and feelings is the good use of visual imagery where he writes 'Legless, sewn short at the elbow.' This powerful phrase gives us the reader an image of the soldier seated in a wheelchair with no legs as well as part of his arm 'deattached', this image being emphasised by the words 'Legless' and 'sewn short'.

Death is inevitable part of human experience, which is often associated with fear of unknown, separation, and spiritual connection. Death is an individual experience, which is based on unique perceptions and beliefs. Fear of death and dying seems to be a universal phenomenon, which is closely associated with apprehension and uneasiness. Death is allied with permanent loss, thus personal experiences of grief are similar in many different cultures. There are different mourning ceremonies, traditions, and behaviors to express grief, but the concept of permanent loss remains unchanged in cross cultural setting. With this paper I will identify cross-cultural perspectives on death and dying, and will analyze

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.

People deal with grief in different ways. As a small child, the way the narrator handles uncertainty and pain is distressing, yet also expected. She finds distractions in the furniture and decorations. The child notices a

In this chapter, events occurred that negatively impacted the author and the other Wes Moore. In the first chapter, the author watched his father die, a memory that he remembered in vivid detail through adulthood. The other Wes Moore met his father for the first time. He was an unreliable alcoholic who didn't want to play a role in his son's life. The quote "While I knew something had happened, I still wasn't sure what it all meant" (Moore 15) relates to both boys. The author watched his life change with the death of his father but didn't even know what people meant when they told him his father had "passed on." The other Wes Moore witnessed his mother cry because she knew she'd never be able to finish school, a life-long dream of her's, but didn't fully understand the situation at his young age. The excerpt displays how naive they

When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.

Taking place in a post-apocalyptic world ,The man feels guilt to making the boy grow up in these conditions, he tries to shield the boy as much as he can from the horrors of the world. Everyday is another endless struggle, for both the man and the boy. The man does his best to protect the boy and make sure he keeps hope, and continues to “carry the light”. As the story progresses there are points in which it is clear that the boy loses hope. There is a point in the novel in which the boy wishes he was dead, with his mother, and it is clear how much this hurts his father. The man’s main goal was to keep the boy alive, and to hear that the boy is suffering so much that he would rather die is a devastating

one dead, turned to their affairs. A sense of defeat was also perceived as Frost simply uses the

As King Lear is receiving warnings of his doom, the end to the poem portrays the idea of his loneliness when Robert Frost describes a mental storm and the idea of loneliness and regret by using imagery of “frosty shore” in line 5, “somber clouds” in line 7, and “sinister in the tone” in line 11. This imagery additionally shows that King Lear can be considered the speaker in the poem and that without his daughters to support him and give him praises as their father, he is alone through both the physical storm and mental storm of regret. With this, the poem mentions another concept of King Lear’s downfall of power with Frost statement of: “Summer was past and the day was past” (Frost 6). Summer and day symbolize the idea of strength and prosperity while winter and night show death and sorrow. Although King Lear did have power and strength during the days he was king and had land, now summer and day are gone and his reign is over. Due to this, King Lear fall from power and his title of king as well as the way he is viewed changes from respect to disrespect. As this perception continues, King Lear is alone without his daughters thus causing him to express hatred, rejection, anger, and the need for love. King Lear’s expression of his situation directly parallels the words that the narrator describes at the end of Robert Frost’s poem which states that “Word I was in my life, alone, word I had no one left but God”

Hayden utilizes visual and auditory imagery to demonstrate the father’s discomfort and sacrifice. Readers get a sense of the deadly, frostbite coldness through “blueblack cold” (2). Visual images such as the “blueblack cold” create a painful, frigid

The sister prepares the evening meal, making her contribution to the family; and calls on the boy to come and eat. The saw in the boy?s hands was still running and when he took his attention away from his work, and that split second of carelessness cost him an extremity. His instincts raised his arm upward to keep all the blood from spilling out immediately. When he realized what was happening, the boy finally realized he was to young to be doing a man?s work. The boy ?saw all spoiled,? and now knew his whole childhood had vanished and it was impossible to get it back. The boy frantically called out to his sister to make the doctor keep his hand on. The boy?s body must have instantly gone into shock and not felt the absence of the hand. When the doctor arrived he gave him some ether to make him go to sleep. The little boy began to lose his pulse and soon he was a stranger to the world. The people surrounding the boy never expected the loss of his hand to tragically end the little boy?s life. Frost?s almost appalling casual description of death shocks the reader enough to make them think. ?Since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs,? describes the environment of the survivors. They are forced to move on with their life and keep working because they cannot afford to stop and mourn.

As the old saying goes, in this world nothing can be said to be sure, except death and taxes. Even everyone knows their life must have an end, but most of them still fear the death. In the short stories, A Drowning by Mark Ferguson and Red Bean Ice by Nancy Lee, authors have demonstrated the reaction and feeling of people to death. In these two stories, the characters are unlike the other person when death comes. They are both calm facing to death, and they are all insisting their hope. However, the reaction of people around them for their death is different.

In “Home Burial”, Frost is using the characters in the story as a vehicle to play out the hard times he himself encounters when his children died. The story has an uncanny resemblance to his life during the time when he and his wife were dealing with their son’s death.