Short Story The Fly

Parents cling to their children wanting them to stay young forever, wanting endless memories and nothing to change, yet they must be able to part from these feelings to allow the child to grow. In the story “A Private Talk with Holly”, the author, Henry Felsen, uses symbolism to convey the central idea that if you love someone you have to let them go. When Holly, the main character of the story, talks to her Dad about changing her plans, he is faced with a difficult decision, but in the end he allows Holly to chase her dreams for her own good.

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two stories that reveal the consequences of individual suffering. These consequences include estranging relationships, bitter behavior, and even illness, addiction, or death. Throughout each of these stories, Sonny and John’s wife, known as the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, continue to suffer due to John’s and Sonny’s brother’s, known as the narrator of “Sonny’s Blues”, failure to meet obligations and familial compassion. Neither the narrator in “Sonny’s Blues” nor the husband, John, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” serve as the villains of the stories, however, I believe we are able to see how both their inabilities to effectively

For this essay, I am going to be discussing the short story “Swimming” found on the New Yorker, and written by T. Cooper. I have chosen this story for many reasons, and among those reasons is the personal sadness I felt when I first read the story, almost as if the universe was placing a certain theme in my life, that only the main character could possibly understand. I am talking about running, the god given instinct felt by all men, inherent in the nature of fear, and brought out in all who feel sadness in its full intensity. Though in my short life I can not compare the sadness I have felt with that of losing a child at my own hand, but if I had been placed in that situation, if fate had tempted my soul with such a sequence of events, I would like to think I could find the strength to endure and the courage to not abandon all I had previously known. Yet I am able to reconcile the themes of grief, the mode of recovery, and the longing to escape such a terrible tale. I think in this piece, as I will discuss in later parts, the author was able to put into words a transformation we rarely get to observe in closeness, the kind of transformation that turns a kind man into a “just man” the kind of death that turns this world from a beautiful and happy place into a world that is closing in on our main character, that is forcing him to surface temporarily and gasp for air, much like he does when he finds peace in the water, wading breath after air, after sea. I firmly believe that

Many people define their lives by the relationships within their family. They are someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s mother or father. The loss of a family member, especially due to death, creates a radical readjustment to people’s day to day lives and how they see and feel about themselves. Sometimes the process of grief can last over several years and how it is mentally processed and dealt with is different for everyone. “Mud” by Geoffrey Forsyth, shows an insightful view of a grieving man who had already lost his father and grandmother and is now just coming to terms with the loss of his wife two years prior. The entire story is written in first person point of view which allows for the reader to fully engage themselves in the grief and strife of the narrator’s life. Geoffrey’s story “Mud” begins in the home of the narrator where he encounters these dead family members and has to decide if he is ready to move on from his grief and say goodbye or stay behind and be consumed by it.

The theme of parental mourning has been a universal one throughout the centuries. In the literature on bereavement, writers repeat certain themes, thoughts, and reflections; they talk of the powerful and often conflicting emotions involved in "the pain of grief and the

Gail Cadwell once said “I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures” In Richard Wagamese’s novel, Ragged Company, the theme of loss is developed through the main characters’ physical strength to face the challenges of life with without a sense of fear regardless of the risk of disappointment, their emotional willpower to overcome adversity and their influential beliefs that allow them to endure hardships. The physical death of loved ones affect the five best friends’ ability to comprehend their losses. The emotional tragedies that each character develops have an expressive impact these characters’ perception of the world around them. The loss of spiritually influences how each individual deals with their own hardships and struggles. As a direct result of loss, the five main characters are forced to cope with their misfortunes and survive in modern day society.

The father’s way of dealing with his inner issues is reflected by the way he distracts himself with hobbies of the women he loves. This illustrates how a sudden tragedy can influence someone’s lifestyle. In fact, before his first wife passed away he showed a lot of interest in art and when she died he was lost and devastated ,” (…) after mom died, my sister and I used to worry about his living alone. And he was lonely.We knew that after putting in his usual twelve-hours workday, he would return to the empty house (...) then read medical journals until it was time to go to sleep.”(16). This implies that

This book explores lots of different emotions, all tying into each other. Each emotions feeds off others, and different people experience different feelings. Emotion is a major part of the book because, while it doesn’t often go that deep into it, it is the driving force for lots of the plot

When someone goes through a time of grief, it is only natural to find a way to deal with the hardships and until it eventually goes away, but people may come to realize that the loss can never be forgotten. This process of grieving and fighting through hard times to finally come to peace and accept reality is also reflected in literature such as “Hold Tight”. The short story ¨Hold Tight¨ by Amy Bloom shows that when people deal with grief, people may try to find ways to cope with the pain by letting out their anger on others or becoming self-destructive, even though it may not be possible to completely forget the woe.

To begin with, the death of Aunt Bernie brings great grief to the narrator and affects his performance at work. His reaction to the event exemplifies the way the society has taught people to react to sorrow. After Bernie’s death, he comes to work not in high spirits as required for a stripper, and female guests are disappointed in him. As a result, Mr. Frendt advises him, “Grief is good, grief is fine, but too much grief, as we all know, is excessive” (Saunders 19). The statement makes it evident that the society does not expect one to grieve to the extent of affecting their daily life. Specifically, Frendt discourages the narrator from mourning too much “like one of those Comanche ladies who bite off their index fingers when a loved one dies” (Saunders 19). Through such words, the author alludes to the culture of this community that requires people

Discuss how the authors, Craig Silvey and Tim Winton, reveal the central character’s process and understanding of trauma and grief.

At some time in life, a person will experience the death of a relative or lose something that was very important to him or her. After that traumatic event, will that person confront his or her pain, or will that person bury it deep within them? Both ways are possible, however, only one is effective in the long term. According to Tim O'Brien, the most effective way to heal after a traumatic experience is to share stories. In Tim’s book, The things they carried, he used the motifs of loneliness, life, and the mood of nostalgia to illustrate the importance of sharing stories during a healing process.

Betrayal and loneliness are two of the hardest emotions to encounter in life. Nevertheless, at some point everyone will experience and be forced to deal with them. This is made even harder when they are caused by someone you love and trust.  In Meredith Hall’s “Killing Chickens”, she uses various literary devices such as metaphor, simile, and imagery as she processes her husband’s affair and describes having to kill chickens. Hall’s literary nonfiction is based on the happenings of a specific day that was truly hard to handle after being deceived by ones she loved:

The poem that I have selected for this essay is “Talking to Grief” by Denise Levertov. I chose this poem because it talks about grief. It also talks about the place that grief should have in a person’s life. The poem describes grief, and compares it to a “homeless dog.” It also describes how a dog deserves its own place in the house, instead of living under a porch or being homeless. This poem talks about how a person can be aware that grief is present, but that it is not always acknowledged and accepted. We all experience grief in different ways, and for different reasons. Everyone deals with grief in their own personal way. This poem describes a point in a person’s life when they are ready to accept grief as a part of their life

However, once more, “there interposed a Fly” (12), interrupting not only the silence but also the narrator’s mind which is trying to calm before the fear of death. This is because, the fly act as the last string the narrator can hold on to, or in other words, the last string that will connect the narrator and the world. With all her possessions assigned to others, the narrator does not own any physical possessions and she is also standing on the margin of losing her life. The sound of the fly buzzing and the sight of the fly flying around the room allow the narrator on the deathbed to know she is still alive and existing in the world as a human being. The fly, when seen from the positive or the optimistic point of view, can act as a symbol of hopefulness, for life existing in the same room with death can be interpreted as fly blocking and stopping the door of death from opening.