Death Is The Mental State Of The Boy

Throughout the history of literary works, there have been many themes that can be found in all of them such as death. Over time, death has been found to be a prominent theme amongst writers of nearly every era in literary history. As an excellent example, During the Romantic era William Wordsworth’s “We are Seven” gives readers a strange feeling of death that still evades the comprehension of a little girl whose two siblings are deceased. The topic of death can be found later on in history in the work of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener. In both writings, there are dealings with death.

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.

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.

Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too

The last line in the poem “and since they were not the ones dead, turned to their own affairs” lacks the emotions the reader would expect a person to feel after a death of a close family member. But instead, it carries a neutral tone which implies that death doesn’t even matter anymore because it happened too often that the value of life became really low, these people are too poor so in order to survive, they must move on so that their lives can continue. A horrible sensory image was presented in the poem when the “saw leaped out at the boy’s hand” and is continued throughout the poem when “the boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh…the hand was gone already…and that ended it”, this shows emphasis to the numbness the child felt. The poem continues with the same cold tone without any expression of emotion or feelings included except for pain, which emphasizes the lack of sympathy given. Not only did the death of this child placed no effect on anyone in the society but he was also immediately forgotten as he has left nothing special enough behind for people to remember him, so “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. This proves that life still carries on the same way whether he is present or not, as he is insignificant and that his death

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.

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.

In Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out-” the poet uses literary devices to describe the setting and thorough meaning of the poem. Frost has created a character during World War 1, and the character gets injured and dies from that injury. Frost reveals imagery, diction, and figurative language.

In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death”, the speaker encounters Death and takes her on a leisurely carriage ride to her grave. Through the use of personification and punctuation, the author was able to portray the speaker’s mindset of embracing the inevitability of death for all mortal beings. Through the use of personification, the author was able to represent “Death” and “Immortality” as her companions in the carriage ride. Dickinson creates a portrait of Death as not a fearful being, but more of a comrade, “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me” (lines 1-2).

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.

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.

Compare how the theme of loss is communicated in the poems “Disabled” by Wilfred Owen and ‘Out, Out –‘by Robert Frost

Losing a loved one is never easy. The way each individual deals with grief and coping with the loss of a loved one may be different from those who share a similar tragedy. In the case of Edgar Allan Poe, he was always faced with death, especially that of a young beloved. In most of his work, death is a common theme. Poe captures this theme in his poems, “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven”. In these poems, he uses imagery to set the tone and to convey the theme of death, and express the psychological impact on the speakers from their loss. Similarly, both speakers in the poems experience the loss of a loved one and they differ in the way they cope with the loss and their acceptance of their beloved’s deaths.

One afternoon, I watched over a group of toddlers playing in a nursery. I noticed a little boy playing with a jack-in-the-box. He kept turning the crank on the box and giggling when the lid popped open and jack sprang out. He’d eagerly stuff jack back into the box and start turning the crank again. I kept hearing the melody of “Pop goes the Weasel” over and over. I noticed another little boy gawking out of the corner of my eye. He was sitting a few feet away from the jack-in-the-box. I could tell he desired to play with it. Two of the other toddlers started crying and distracted the boy with the jack-in-the-box. While he was distracted, the gawking toddler grabbed it and started turning the crank. This toddler was confronted with temptation and he gave into it.

In the poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost a young man in New England was using a buzz saw to cut firewood. When it started getting late, the boy’s sister tells him that it’s time for supper and, out of joy, the boy unknowingly cuts his hand off. He asks his sister not to let those doctors amputate his hand not realizing that he had lost massive amount of blood. He then dies under anesthesia and everybody else goes on with their business like nothing ever happened. Death showed in the last seven lines of the poem describes the boy slipping into death: