Dealing with Death Through John Updike

The power of the story has been very much a part of the lives of humans throughout time. The story is able to bring the past to the present and the dead to the living. The story can make the blind see. The story is able to make others feel for events in time that they have never experienced. The story has a profound effect on both the teller and the audience. As the audience is thought to be the beneficiary or the storytelling process, the teller is able to relive the times of old, or even teach a valuable lesson to his or her audience. Thus, allowing both parties to gain something intangible throughout this process. In “The Lives of the Dead,” O’Brien conveys the importance of storytelling and imagination by suggesting that the dead can be brought back to life in the minds of the people who hear it.

     Some say that people never change. They may be right, but no one really knows. What people do know is that every living person has one thing in common, something that will never change. Everyone will die, there’s no way around it. Every “new” and “old” generation will succumb to the same ghastly fate. The differences in the “old” generation and “new” generation sometimes collide in life. The contrast between generations in James Joyce’s “The Dead” is similar to the contrast in the generations today. The “baby boomer” generation is the old fashioned generation preoccupied with hospitality and tradition, where as, “generation x” is the new generation, preoccupied with knowledge and intellect.

In the novel The Dead, Gabriel Conroy, who is the nephew of Julia and Kate Morkan, is the main character of the story. One night he and his wife attended a party, which was given by his two aunts, and there were many other members in the party. The story revolves around their life and memories.Gabriel Conroy felt a blur between his soul and the dead. Some people died, but they are still alive because they have true love. Some people are alive, but they are still dead because they never love.I like the story for three reasons.

This concept provides contrast and diversity in the author’s message of coming of age as a family. After the bombing Kenny sees Joey ,after thinking she was dead, and mourns, “Oh, you’ll probably see them nest. He takes you around to see your family before you go.” (187).The startled and confused Joey then complains, “What’s wrong with you Kenny? How come you looking so funny?” (187). Although no sign of Joey’s lack of change is visible, the point of this dialogue is to show the innocents that joey represents in the novel. Her symbolism of lack of aging and maturity is important to understand because overall, her symbol adds up to so much more than inocents, it adds up to a deeper understanding of the symbolism that the author uses throughout the

“A Sandstone Farmhouse” has to be John Updike’s most supreme short story, and it’s a must read. He speaks on how a man named Joey is reminiscing about his mom and the house they lived in when he was just a young boy. Updike extensively uses flashbacks and imagery to create the grand story.

In the story it says,”We’re back in Bybanks now.”(Creech 260) When Sal says this, she has a sense of happiness and satisfaction about her home. The story states,”Gramps is giving me driving lessons… on the ranch.” (Creech 271) Sal shows how she enjoys her small but perfect ranch, she finally gets settled down and shows appreciation about her old home. Sal also says, “I reread all my postcards when I came home”(Creech 274) Sal settles down, and appreciates her home which connects with her mom’s postcards. Sal’s home sweet home has a lot of meaning to her because she can settle back down again after her

Keeping a person alive by excessive treatment might devastate the family and make the dying suffer tremendously in the end. “Advance medical technology that seems to one person a godsend, extending life, may seem to another a curse that only prolong dying. Dignity can be devalued amid technology focused solely on the biological organism.”

First off, every time there has been a death in Sugarloaf no one knows where Joey was at the time of the deaths. In the case of his fathers death no one was around so Joey could’ve spooked Shieka, which caused her to step on Teds head killing him. Then as his mom was searching for him in the woods during the night something jumped out of the woods and knocked her over the edge of the cliff. In the case of the campers’ death he had ran off because he was frustrated but showed up later on. And lastly as Bill Sikes the caretaker was looking for Joey after he had ran off, Bill was brutally killed, his head barely attached to his head like he was a prisoner being executed. ☺ Even the next morning Joey woke up in bloodstained clothes which further gives the illusion that he could be the killer since he is never around when the murders happen. “Everywhere dark stains covered his clothes. Bloodstains. Still wet, still sticky (Saul 224). This quote clearly shows that for some reason the morning the Bill Sikes was killed that Joey had wet bloodstains on his clothes but had no idea where they had come from since at the time Joey did not know that Bill had been killed. It’s like Joey has an alter ego and when he slips into that other reality he no longer can remember what he is doing or has any control over his actions. Its like Joey is a mad dog. ☺ Where he

The biggest wildfire in recorded United States history was a total of three million acres back in 1825. How plausible is it for the entire United States to turn into a crispy star-spangled country? Based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel, it might happen. In the novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy expresses the idea of surviving against all odds with the intention of holding true to the themes of compassion, honesty, and death with the third person viewpoint from his two main characters, Man and Boy as they journey to the Eastern Coast. Compassion is found in the novel in the way the man cared for his son with other examples. Honesty is a crucial part of these overall themes, and is found in moments when the boy asked about the future and questioned his own mortality. Death is primarily a large theme, as it is in most novels, and is found throughout the novel with certain trivial deaths and with more significant deaths.

Medieval China, as seen in the Stories from a Ming Collection, was characterized by distinct separations between men and women’s abilities, typical old fashioned family structure, and a desire to advance their social status. Throughout all the stories in this book, it dives deep into different aspects of how men and women are treated, how families were structured and how that affects their lives, as well as the values these people held. A very common trend in the stories was how different men and women were treated and the limitations they may or may not had.

Traditionally, women have been known as the less dominant sex. They have been stereotyped as being only housewives and bearers of the children. Many interesting characters in literature are conceived from the tension women have faced with men. This tension is derived from men; society, in general; and within a woman herself. Kate Chopin‘s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, focus on a woman’s dilemma near the turn of the 19th century. Contradicting the “normal” or sad assumption of death, “The Story of an Hour” illustrates the significance of death representing freedom. The Story narrates about an hour of Louise Mallard’s life, as she tries to understand, and deal with her feelings of her husbands death.

In the midst of undergoing a serious life-altering incident, one often experiences the feeling of a paradigm shift. It is amazing to see how our perspectives of the world shift when forced to reflect on what is truly important. Such is the way with death. Being near death causes a sharp realization of what is truly important in life--love of family and friends, faith in God, and making the world a better place to live in--and enables one to not merely accept this, but apply it to their life as well. All those typical, average daily worries and concerns about homework, professional careers, food, sleep, personal grooming, etc., while important and necessary in everyday life must seem unbelievably miniscule when the death has wiped ones

Moreover, these complications even stem over to Henry’s guilt about the war. After arriving in Switzerland, Henry states, “The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else’s college. But I knew from the papers that they were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come” (FTA, 291). Even in Switzerland, Henry cannot escape hearing about the war. While when he escapes the war, Henry cannot escape the guilt of deserting his friends, showing that his inner truth is not that simple. Even his inner meaning from existentialism has complications. With this idea, Friedrich Nietzsche states, “‘All truth is simple.’ Is that not doubly a lie?” This dichotomy between the simple and the complicated demonstrates nihilism’s

There are some philosophies we can take to be better prepared to face death. First, by attending to the important relationships in our live so that we don?t have regrets about what we failed to say or do with those we

Although a scene of a funeral home might come to mind when a reader first hears a short story aptly named “The Dead,” the tale actually takes place in the festive setting of a winter dance at the home of the two aunts of the main character, Gabriel Conroy. James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” has a literal title, because its main concept is death – both physical death and spiritual death.