The Death Of Our Village

If you were thrown overboard a ship and had to survive in the freezing water of the Atlantic Ocean, how would you do it? How would you survive that? Anyone to ask me that question would receive a strained, “I don’t know?”, accompanied by an odd look. What person goes through that and lives? In The Speck of the Sea by Paul Tough, he details for us the experience of John Aldridge; a middle-age fisherman from Montauk who with only the clothes on his back and his brain survived for hours in the salty Atlantic. The telling of his experience is an exciting story that really shines a light on the human spirit, specifically on our willpower and resourcefulness.

The village, having been already unanimous on their practice of their tradition which involves leaving their dead at sea, there lies a proof as to their ability to concoct any practice of tradition in itself. Thus, logically, all that is left for them would be to run across a spark to initiate such attitudes. In this case, Esteban provides the perfect excuse for them to engage in what is seen in the story. Towards the end though, the characters of the story provide the reader with the flaw in their way of life, and how their close ties lead to them constructively practicing what would be deemed as unethical. With heavy hearts, sorrow, and tears, the members of the island notice that maybe they shouldn't actually be burying their dead in the manner that they do, but unfortunately, the pre-existing notion which enforces such rules above what they actually feel - all this caused by their historic agreement to practice such a

Life and death belong together and cannot be separated. Life is inevitably followed by death, the “permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism” (Dictionary.com) which can be caused by accidents, radiation or the accumulation of damage to cells over the course of a lifetime. Since the beginning of time people have been fascinated by this unavoidable phenomenon. Different cultures deal with death differently. However, death has been a central topic in art, poetry, literature, theatre and everywhere else. Death is often used to present und emphasize the beauty of life. Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” depicts death and the circle of life not just via dialogue but also metaphorically and via structure.

It was my birthday; the sun was scorching hot and there was a cool breeze that kept blowing every few minutes. My friend called me to wish would be the best and told me that we should go fishing and I agreed. Upon our arrival to our usual spot, we notice that there was no one else there, which we liked that. We all spread out and began to cast out. Not long after we had gotten there a man came walking down the hill with a large cooler and a small grill on the cooler, behind him a woman followed and a kid as well. They placed their belonging down and all started to head to the river. After a while, I could tell two shadows walking away from the river. I didn’t turn around as I was focused on what I was doing.

A man is limited physically by a rope tied around his hands and feet. Villagers are limited intellectually where none of them have traveled around the world or they have not seen any of the natural beauties and diversities that the world has to offer. One is limited quite simply and clearly while the other simply cannot fathom the awe-inspiring sight bestowed upon them. These are the unlikely scenarios that confront readers of “The Bound Man,” by Ilse Aichinger, and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” by Garcia Marquez. "The Bound Man" is a story about a man who awoke to find himself stuck in a predicament where he has been tied up, knocked out, and left alone in the wilderness with nothing other than the clothes on his back.

Robert M. Franklin in his adoring and avid book Crisis in the Village presents in first-person advice and constructive criticism as he identifies issues within the African-American church. Black churches face a "mission crisis" as they struggle to serve their upwardly mobile and/or established middle class "paying customers" alongside the poorest of the poor. Dr. Franklin wrote this controversial book with great scholarship as a means to awakening the state of Black American; however the question

Darkness would always cover the forbidden town just passed the river bank. It was blocked off from the village next over. The village, in which one particular boy lived out a lonely life. On this night, he decided to embark on an adventure that would change his life. No one was to ever set foot in his town if they want to stay alive, for there was killer on the lose. And in this town no one was safe not even the dead.

As a twelve year old, boy, I had no religious education and no tradition. No belief in God miserably frightened every night, distressed by dreadful dreams and phantasmagorias at night, justifiably, fearful of the dark. Unquestionably, I was overwhelmed and losing hope.

With a close-knit population never teetering over 400, a resident could barely sneeze without the entire village knowing within a matter of hours. This intimate knowledge of ones neighbors for the most part reassured the people of their safety - it was a seemingly picturesque place, carved upright and deeply rooted in moral principle. But like most villages accustomed to their solitude, an underlying distrust was present in the face of any outsider.

At the age of 5 my mother, my father and I took a walk over the bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. While never been able settle down as a child, my mother took it upon herself to carry me across so that I don’t fall down thirty feet to a watery death. As we enjoy the smell of the air and the wind blowing coolly against us, we decided to take a photo. Father went across from us with the camera and my mother and I stood on the other side, our backs facing the edge of the bridge and the river leading to the ocean. It wasn’t until I heard a scream and saw a flash that I realized I was falling for what felt like 10 seconds. After fifteen hours in a coma, I awoke to find my family happy as can be, even though I had no memory of any of them. It was from that point that I wondered how I would have been a different person had I retained all my previous feelings and thoughts.

“I was alone and orphaned, in the middle of the Pacific, hanging on to an oar, an adult tiger in front of me, sharks beneath me, a storm raging above me.” (40,133)

The beach was packed. Tourists ran wild taking picture after picture, locals trotted slowly taking in the sites they had seen some many times before. No one noticed the poverty- stricken family sitting in the shade of a run down building. The family wasn’t out of the norm, one mother, one father, and two little boys. They were just one of the many penniless people begging for money one the streets. What was unexpected was the mysterious

In the story “The Handsomest Drowned Man,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I sense a religious revival in the village as they discover the drowned man. The drowned man was a symbolic hero that brought unity to a small desert-like village that was on the banks of a river. The presence of his body brought change to the villager’s way of thinking, their expectations, and their way of life. The transformation started with the women as they prepared the body for burial.

Going to the beach was nothing like going to the lake or swimming pool. The ocean had large waves that would come crashing into the beach. I was so small that the waves would just throw me around. I also got to walk down the beach and find different objects that the waves had washed up on shore. I found seashells that had brilliant colors like the rainbow. I even found a creature that looked like pink jelly. I picked the creature up with a stick and took it to show my dad. My dad told me that it was a jellyfish that could sting me, so he made me bury it in the sand. I saw another creature that was gliding in shallow water. It was dark brown with a long tail and looked like it had wings. It was a horrible looking creature that I had never seen before. My dad came down to the water to see what I was looking at. He told me that they were called skates, and they would not hurt me. That was the first time I saw something living in the ocean besides a fish. My dad then showed me that there were little creatures called, sand fiddlers, which would wash up when the waves crashed into the shore. We sat down on the sand so he could show me how to catch them. The sand fiddlers would dig down in the sand fast as lightning, so we had to dig for them fast as we could. When I caught one it felt like it was trying to dig into your hand with what seemed like a million legs. After about four hours I was exhausted and starving. I

The people of the village seem to be enthralled with the dead man. They are all in amazement of how tall he is, how heavy his body seems to be. They are all curious about the mysterious man and where he could’ve came from, what could’ve happened to lead to his demise. The focus on their fascination with the man shows how odd we as a society can be at times. Everyone in society is, though somewhat scared, highly intrigued by the notion of death. It’s something that we all have to face at some point in life. It’s scary, but we for some reason are so interested in it when we are forced to acknowledge it.