Dying By John Summers: A Nice Life

“Life is fine!” is not what one typically announces if their life really is fine (Hughes l.27). Often, people hide behind masks of being “fine” to hide their true issues, such as depression and despair. The poem “Life is Fine” by Langston Hughes as well as “On Turning Ten” by Billy Collins tackles the topic of depression. While both poems focus on this theme of depression, they greatly differ in their perspectives and outlooks for the future, one with a suicidal adult as narrator, the other a ten year old child.

On September 11th 2001, 70 years old Rita Laser lost her brother. Along with Kelly, Colleen, David, Eva, and Amber who as well lost someone special to them in the attack. Many of the victims families hid in silence after the attack, full of sadness, the government was trying to get revenge for the victims that were lost in the attack. However Rita Laser had a different outlook, she and others did not want revenge by killing other, her, Kelly, Colleen, David, Eva, and Amber were all trying to install peace into the world not start a war. In Sue Halpern’s “A Peaceful Mourning” describes that in the aftermath of the attack they have all devoted their lives into advocating peace throughout the world, in their lost one’s name.

In society there are still differences in classes such as higher class, middle class, and lower class. In sociology, we observed a film called The Pursuit Happyness, where we witnessed the struggles a father went through to succeed. Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith, is living in his apartment with his wife and his son. Due to their struggles, the mother walks out on and leaves Chris struggling alone with his son. In the film Chris Gardner applies for an unpaid internship for a competitive stockbroker company where out of twenty men, only one gets the job. While he is on his internship, we see the hardships of getting kicked out of his apartment to staying at a shelter home to then sleeping in a subway bathroom with his son. Viewing the movie through a sociological lens, The Pursuit of Happyness will be analyzed according to the major three sociological paradigms: structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism.

Sonny’s Blues by James Balwin has a variety of themes. The main theme represented in this short story is suffering. Suffering seemed to be a main part of the narrator and Sonny’s everyday lifestyle. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the narrator compares him and his brother’s rough life to the students in his Algebra class, “These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.”(5-7) The young men in Harlem believe that they will never have anything good going for them in their lives because of the racist society that we live in. They suffer from the ill effects of the limits that their conditions have obliged them with.

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash definitely fits the category of “grit lit.” It is a novel about the Hall’s, a family who is wracked with grief, anxiety, and guilt after the ‘mysterious’ death of one of their sons, Christopher or Stump. The story encompasses more than just the story of the family though as it is told from the perspective of Adelaide Lyle, an old wise woman from the town, Jess Hall the youngest son of the family, and Clem Barefield, the sheriff of Marshall who also had heartache of his own that is intertwined with this families story in more ways than one. The novel incorporates most if not all of the features that is “grit lit” including: an element of crime, a focus on the bleakness of life, lyrical language, and a central character who wishes to escape their environment or get peace inside it.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).” The love and respect for the outdoors is something everyone should value, many things promote this way of life, due to its extravagance and true freedom in this great creation. They can sometimes go to that outdoor place in books, poems, art, and even some news articles. Much of this world doesn’t get to see the other side of America; they don’t get to see the best part, the outdoors.

Throughout the story “Sonny’s Blues”, by James Baldwin, several themes are prevalent. One major theme is suffering. Almost every single character in the story suffers in some way, shape, or form. The story takes place in 1950’s Harlem, a time when African Americans did not have as many rights as they do today. Harlem at this time was a low-class, poverty-stricken section of New York City. Many people were suffering, in the story and in real life. In the story, the theme suffering is shown through the narrator, Sonny, and the father.

In Steve Earle’s essay “A Death in Texas,” he wrote “I do know that Jonathan Nobles changed profoundly while he was in prison. I know that the lives of people he came in contact with changed as well, including mine.” Changing a life, as we all know, is a difficult thing to do; however, that does not mean it is impossible. To change behaviors and thoughts is hard, because it requires courage, effort and perseverance. Nevertheless, many people have managed to do it, and Jonathan Wayne Nobles was one of them.

James Baldwin’s "Sonny's Blues", is a story of two brothers in Harlem, New York. His name, which is never introduced, the story is told from the viewpoint of Sonny's brother. Events in the text brings up many memories of Sonny and his brother which leads to endless amounts of emotions. Throughout "Sonny's Blues", Sonny is affected by the idea of suffering, death of his parents, and his addiction to heroin, in which Baldwin uses to create a cathartic experience in Sonny's life.

Published in 1997, Marie Howe’s anthology of poems, What the Living Do was written as an elegy to her brother, John, who passed away due to AIDS. Howe’s anthology is written without metaphor to document the loss she felt after her brother’s death. Although What the Living Do is written as an anthology, this collection allows for individual poems to stand alone but also to work together to tell an overarching story. Using the poetic devices of alliteration, enjambment, repetition and couplets, Howe furthers her themes of gender and loss throughout her poems in her anthology.

One sad rainy day Joe was walking home from work, Joe is 28 years old and 6 feet tall and has a large scar across his left side of his face. On that day Joe was upset because he was fired and is poor. Now that he has no job he is very desperate for money. Just as he was entering his house he got a phone call from his boss. That fired him earlier in the day he looked at his phone and he realized got home later than usual it was 6 pm. He got his bike stolen so he had to walk home. His boss was a very nice man, so Joe answered his phone expecting some good news from his boss. Instead, he wanted to talk to him about why he got fired. His boss explained to him that he was being to irresponsible and that he would have to change his ways if he ever

There I was, moments ago, on my deathbed at twenty years old moments ago and now here . Too soon to go some would say and it looks as though some greater deity agrees, because here I am waking up in the bed I slept in when I was five, i looked around for any hints to what was happening and saw a scroll with my name written in calligraphy.'Ruby,' it said, 'as you may see you are not in Heaven or Hell. We feel as though you had gotten on the wrong path by one minor mistake. You were supposed to sit with your neighbor, Leon, your first day on the bus, but your bus driver changed the seating arrangements too late for us to notice. That was a mistake on our part, you see when humans are born they get assigned a group of our people to help guide

When I was in third grade I got suspended. It was my fault, I got suspended for two things. First reason was I hit my teacher with a flying pencil top eraser. The second reason was because me and my friend was not the most appropriate people in our school. We were always doing something bad.

1939 World War 11, Germany. Liesel Meminger is a 9 yar old girl. When her mother can no longer care for her she is adopted by the hubermans.

Poetry is a complicated yet beautiful artform. It allows for an individual to express their emotions and ideas by painting a picture using eloquent lines. Although alluring, poetry is also perplexing. It is almost impossible to fully understand what the author was exactly trying to get across in writing. There are however, multiple factors that can be used to help analyze poetry to get a better feel of that certain piece. In this paper, I will be analyzing Life Is Fine by Langston Hughes using irony, symbols, tone, rhyme, rhythm and meter.