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Love And Loss : Happy Endings By Margaret Atwood

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When people think of love and loss many thoughts can enter one 's mind. Love and loss can be seen as painful, unfortunate, depressing. Most people would relate love and loss to romantic relationships that ended in breakups; on the contrary, “Confession Day” allows people to confess the pain they have felt through any of their losses. In the poems “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron, “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold and in the short story “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood, it is noticed that love and loss can happen in different situations, to different people, at different times. These writings show love and loss in a relationship with loving from a distance, a man in love with faith but has the lost sight of religious faith in society,…show more content…
Her eyes seem to bring the light in the dark according to Byron, and her beauty does not seem to be set in one place. Both the dark and the light seem to be great to Byron, he does not seem to have a favorite. Byron looks at the unknown woman as pure, but he almost seems distant from her in the poem, as if he’s just far enough away from her, but can still see her beauty as she walks. It begins to become clear that this woman is no longer in Byron’s life, he has lost her, but still loves her. The love descriptions and distance relate to love and loss, and although he cannot reach her or have her, he still loves her. The end of the poem is outspoken as he describes her more eloquently, and describes wanting peace, and innocent love, and understanding that feeling cannot be her, as he has lost the unknown woman. This poem is not the typical love poem, but instead, speaks of the love from a distance and the loss the man felt. This love and loss poem describes Byron loving and losing a woman from a distance, while describing her internal beauty also. Byron begins the poem introducing love and loss with an unknown woman being loved from a distance. The poem begins by comparing her beauty to the night when Byron states,“She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies/ And all that’s best of dark and bright” These three lines describe beauty of the unknown woman, but the words describe
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