Mortality In 'The Ice Cream Truck'

In “On Natural Death,” Thomas appeals to the readers by contemplating the subject of death with an academic approach that includes facts, data, and information. Thomas successfully transforms death from an awkward, emotional subject to a more comfortable intellectual one. This engages the readers by placing contemplation of death and dying within the confines of a more manageable and rational context. His gradual exhumation of death eases the audience into pondering the subject in the absence of emotional stress. The essay transitions from the death of an elm tree to that of a mouse. This is followed by Thomas giving a significant amount of attention to a scientific explanation of death, and then finally the description of the near death experience of a human. This use of an academic appeal moves the audience to a comfort zone with the subject of death and circumvents the common response of avoidance. The reader is simultaneously desensitized to the gravity of subject matter and given permission to consider death and dying without the normal societal negative stigma associated with the subject.

Throughout the entire of the novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley shows that Frankenstein’s demise is a direct result of his own decisions. Mary displays this through three vivid actions that Victor did; the creation of the creature, the death of his Brother and trial of Justine, and the ignorance Victor had that led to the murder of Victor’s wife, Elizabeth. Victor was a very smart student with an immense drive to accomplish whatever he told himself he was going to accomplish. With Victor’s early studying in college, Victor describes his situation when studying “Victor’s cheeks had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. “ (Shelley 40), Showing Victor relied so heavily on studying that he was hurting his body

Nowadays, Americans find violence entertaining. It is recorded, viewed, and shared constantly. In Don DeLillo’s short story, “Videotape” a young girl recorded a man that was shot while driving in a car; the video was shown on the news repetitively. The short story revolves around a man at home attentively watching the video; he continuously called on his wife to watch the video with him. This videotape represents how everyone is being desensitized to violence, how there is a growing obsession with violence, and how quickly life can be taken away.

The theme death has always played a crucial role in literature. Death surrounds us and our everyday life, something that we must adapt and accept. Whether its on television or newpaper, you'll probobly hear about the death of an individual or even a group. Most people have their own ideas and attitude towards it, but many consider this to be a tragic event due to many reasons. For those who suffered greatly from despair, living their life miserably and hopelessly, it could actually be a relief to them. Death effects not only you, but also those around you, while some people may stay unaffected depending on how they perceive it.

Death perception is what sets apart the wise from the foolish and the sensitive from the weak minded; this statement is both true within life and the epic poem Beowulf. Many statements within the spectrum of death in the current world relates and dates back to this one poem, even more so now through the translation of Seamus Heaney. Passed along as a folk tale from as early as the 5th century to the 9th century, and then composed in about the 10th century, Beowulf creates a solid base for many of today’s present and worldly ideals. Countless themes are taken from this poem, but one theme that many people may glaze over is the extremely morbid tone of death and its purpose. Used as an archetype for the audience, the purpose of this morbid theme of death is to help understand and cope with mortality, especially during that time period. Accepting/ understanding is wiser than foolishly attempting to escape or cheat death as the poem blatantly proves after closely analyzing its purpose of discussing fate and death before the battles; choosing to always stand by good morals and actions; and the major significance of the main character’s death along with a couple counterarguments. By examining each aspect, the reader will gain the realization as to why Seamus Heaney decided to create this theme that he did with the direction from “The Beowulf poet [that] was captivated by the imagery of death” (Tanke 356).

To suggest guns as a means of self-defense is sometimes criticized as playing unfairly on emotions, and indeed for many there may never come a time that they would imagine using one. But then, it is largely because of

By biological logic, we human beings will face death sooner or later in our life and death has its very own ways to approach us - a sudden deadly strike, a critical sickness, a tragic accident, a prolonged endurance of brutal treatment, or just an aging biological end. To deal with the prospect of death come different passive or active reactions; some may be scared and anxious to see death, some try to run away from it, and some by their own choice make death come faster. But Viktor Frankl, through his work Man’s Search for Meaning, and Bryan Doyle; in his essay “His Last Game” show us choices to confront the death, bring it to our deepest feelings, meaningful satisfaction. To me, the spirit of the prisoners at deadly concentration camps, Frankl’s Logotherapy theory of “. . . striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” (99), as well as the calmness of Doyle’s brother on his last ride, like an awaken bell, remind us of how precious life is, how we should find the significance in every act of living, determine to live a meaningful life at any circumstances; hence, when death comes, we can accept it without anxiety nor regrets.

He deprives himself from social interaction, sleep, and good food, driving his mind to a distraught place. He is gambling with his well-being and health for an invention he will surely regret. After assembling the body parts and odd chemicals to create the ‘Being,’ he animates it by a sudden spark. Here we understand that Frankenstein fully regrets his decision of congregating such a ‘human-monster’ or an abomination to God. Victor is depressed now. He becomes drained through simple social interaction, and we see this when he becomes ill and refuses to send letters to his father and future wife to inform them of his wellbeing, or if he was dead or

Many people believe carrying a gun would protect and keep them safe but, yet guns have been mostly involved in many of the deaths caused each year. Instead, of using a gun for protection, many people misuse this weapon, increasing unintended injuries, and even deaths. Many gun shootings were even caused by people’s emotion, such as feeling weak, or hateful between another human being. Bryce Williams who was fired from the station felt nothing but, frustration which were one of the reason to cause the shooting of Alison Parker and Adam Ward. The gun, ended up in the wrong hand, which allowed the Bryce to put other people’s life at risk causing two deaths and an injury. Instead, of people causing less violence to the world, all they are doing

When faced with the inevitable fate of death, the reaction of the population is very different because of their relation to life. Some men did not stop for death; they “hurried to and from” grinding their teeth in anger, which indicated their frustration in their inability to change the inevitable. Some “hid their eyes and wept” because of their unwillingness to accept the end while others rested “Their chins upon their clinched hands.” The latter watched their world fall apart bravely and smiled at their fate.

Even though people have been dying since the start of life, we can never get use to the idea of leaving our loved ones behind. Therefore humans choose to disregard death and get pleasure from life, and consequently we tend to stray away from righteousness. Two works; Everyman by an unknown author, and The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer have been written to preach humans toward Christianity-the right way of living. These authors utilize plot to reveal the role of death in understanding life. This is achieve by drawing on the foolishness of mankind, their response to the inevitable death and the effect of death on protagonists which altogether helps the readers understand worldly treasures are temporary.

Death is a force that continuously plagues humanity from day to day, and sometimes even just the thought of leaving our world causes many terror and anxiety; yet would a never-ending life truly be any better than coming to an eventual demise? This lust for the gift of immortality is a naïve desire which comes attached to more extreme consequences than one would think. These consequences and the overall concept of immortality being a curse instead of a blessing has been explored particularly in “The Mortal Immortal” by Mary Shelley, and “Herbert West: Reanimator” by H.P Lovecraft . The characters featured in these short stories expose the perils of achieving the inhuman attribute of eternal life, and then suffer the repercussions for going

Death. This human inevitability is among the most frequent subjects in ancient literature. It is a crucial fact of life, yet no one is certain what lies beyond. Death itself is often not thought of until tragedy strikes, and until then, individuals often look at the world much more optimistically. Authors, in particular, have the entire world and its experiences from which to draw their inspiration. However, death has and will always be one of the most prominent themes explored in literature, as it is one of the great mysteries of human existence. Although death is universal, it does not have one unitary view. Various cultures conceptualize death, as seen through their unique beliefs, feelings, and native practices often represented in

Throughout this entire course it has been apparent that every author has their own way of seeing the world, which is portrayed in their own writings. There are perspectives that do match up eventually; these authors and their literary works are Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Aruther Miller’s The Death of a Salesman, and finally Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”. These authors have rather similar perspectives in these literature works. All these works involve the human nature of life and death in rather prejudice and unfair ways.

As we all know, death is an unavoidable occasion for everyone. We never know when it will come, therefore some fear it. Some think it’s just a part of life that we can’t change so they accept it and move on. Others have days every year to celebrate it and those who were taken by it, and make it less of a fearful thing. From the moment we are born to the moment we die, death is always there, waiting for us. Many people, throughout the many years that we have on this planet, reflect upon it in differently. Two of these many people are Richard Steele and Lu Hsun. These two authors from different centuries had different, yet similar, thoughts on death; Steele brought up sorrow when reflecting upon death, while Hsun introduces beliefs of death in his culture and contemplates its approach.