The Last Leaf Analysis

This story was written, charmingly, in an unorthodox, yet loving manner. Rich with reality, the novel, led me into the atrocious, but true, glimpse into the world at the time. The phrases and paragraphs, struck me, illustrating the spliced lives of the protagonists, through complex, evocative, at times ethereal, imagery. The plot, progressive, and compelling, is profoundly sad, touching and uplifting. Flowing at a fast-pace, the plot, is a genuine page-turner, of which brought sadness in me when a disaster stroke, or warmth, when the characters embraced their connections to each other. The story covering the effects of hunger, war, prejudice, love, hatred, friendship, deception and growth, through its character development, cleverly stayed faithful to the plot, throughout. The characters, executed flawlessly on the author’s part, though not superficial, were tragic, and believable. The interwoven lives of these characters are complex, inspiring and perturbing. Being memorable, the characters had great prose, and development in the story. In the Book Thief, the use of Death as the narrator, persistent use of unintentional humour, was quite unique. Personally, I enjoyed Death’s utilization of dark, unintentional humour, as it ironically, lightened the saddest of

In “Whoever We Are, Loss Finds us and Defines Us”, by Anna Quindlen, she brings forth the discussion grief's grip on the lives of the living. Wounds of death can heal with the passing of time, but in this instance, the hurt lives on. Published in New York, New York on June 5, 1994, this is one of many Quindlen published in the New York Times, centered on death's aftermath. This article, written in response to the death of Quindlen’s sister-in-law, and is focused on an audience who has, currently is, or will experience death. Quindlen-a columnist for the New York Times and Newsweek, Pulitzer Prize winner and author-has written six bestselling novels (Every Last One, Rise and Shine, Object Lessons, One True Thing, and Black and Blue) and has

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 loss is portrayed similarly in the two poems ‘Disabled’ and ‘Out, out-’. Both of these poems are about the protagonist dealing with physical loss as they both experience an accident. Both Wilfred Owen and Robert Frost manage to mesmerize their audience’s attention, and also sympathize for the protagonists’ misfortune. They do this by the use of many literary techniques which are obvious at times, but some are very subtle, such as similes, metaphors, personification, and contrasts.

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.

A poem which explores the feeling of loss is ‘Visiting Hour’ by Norman MacCaig. In this powerful and moving poem, the writer uses techniques such as imagery, symbolism and word choice to effectively grip the reader and keeps them with him throughout the poem.

The Things They Carried is an autobiographical novel written by Tim O’Brien that details his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Considered to be “the best work of fiction ever written about Vietnam, some even think it is the best about war,” (Greenya 1). The stories that are contained within the novel talk about themes such as loss, burdens, and the horrifying truths of the Vietnam War, the first war to take place during a more ‘modern’ era, as the tragedies of the war could be broadcasted through television. Much like many soldiers that fought in the war, Tim O’Brien was forced to face through many tragedies. Due to this, the book is used to preserve those who have died in Tim O’Brien’s life. The two chapters within The Things They Carried develop the importance of O’Brien’s coping mechanism. In The Little Brown Reader, ‘Snapshot: Lost Lives of Women’ by Amy Tan contains a similar structure to the two chapters of O’Brien’s novel. I believe that Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is similar to Amy Tan’s ‘Snapshot: Lost Lives of Women in the structure detailing the past and the idea of keeping people’s lives preserved through the art of storytelling, O’Brien’s last two chapters are essential in showing this similarity.

Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen and Moonlight shadow are Japanese novellas in which the protagonist is followed during their grieving period. In order to accurately depict the nature of significant loss and its aftermath, the stories follow distinct structures to that of western literature. Yoshimoto intensifies unexpected losses in a young woman’s life with the non-linear structure and the deficit of foreshadowing. The structure supports the story’s themes of lack of control in life and the unexpectedness it withholds.

In the short story “Sea Oak,” George Saunders presents a family that is struggling with life in the poor neighborhood of Sea Oak. The narrator works as a male stripper in Joysticks, run by Mr. Frendt. The story also revolves around Auntie Bernie, who dies, resurrects, and dies again after advising the narrator, his sister Min, and their cousin Jade to adopt unorthodox and immoral means of making it in life. Two main themes that emerge in Saunders’ work are grief and loss that people suffer in life, and how the society teaches to deal with them, including the loss of a fruitful life, lack of wealth and success, as well as death.

Heartache, misery and sorrow; the death of a loved one can be expressed using these three simple terms. But, can the death of a loved one really be described? Alice W. Terry writes the exceptional journal about the stages of grief, how to cope and how it truly feels to lose a loved one, a daughter to be exact. Not having experienced the physical loss of someone as close to me as a daughter is to her mother, this journal gave me a personal perspective of the anguish experienced by those who are grieving.

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.

My experience with loss with comes from p.56 when the author talks about when we first come into life. “We enjoy being held, and then we’re suddenly put down.As we get older,we lose our friends when we or they move away, we lose our toys when they break or get lost, and we lose the softball championship. We have our first loves only to lose them. And the series of losses has just begun.”(pg.56) I think everything the author said spoke out to me especially “And the series of losses has just begun.”(pg.56) I even remember at a young age playing little league and wanting to win every game to end up either losing or winning sometimes. As a kid you think everything is perfect that your parents always have your back. I’ve seen it first hand my nieces and nephews just like any other 4 and 5 year old and maybe even older kids still believe this that their mom and dad are invincible can't die that they are forever living. However when you get older your youth is robbed from you, you slowing start to realize that everyone has their time even your own parents. Growing up for me loss was everywhere I lost two of my best friends because I had to move. Come to find out one

It Doesn’t matter if the short story was based on true events or not. When its written about death or losing loved ones, it always reminds you of the people that were so close at once and then gone forever. Many people all over the world deal with their feelings of losing someone. So people cry, and some keep the emotions in and let it burn inside. “A Few Things Wrong with Me” by Lydia Davis and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and “Harvey’s Dream” by Stephen King are three examples of how character’s have lost their loved ones in a different way. Some were killed and some were faded away. It also shows unhappy & happy relationships. Two of the three books also have a comparison of people that have problems in their life or forced to be in a problem. These three short stories are written from different authors perspective and have difficult plots but there is one thing that gathers them together, it is the despair that was left in their souls by the loved ones. In these three short stories a person dies or has left someone forever, but all in different aspects. Loosing a person that had a spot in your life isn’t an easy thing to forget but also leaves a mark in your heart forever. Two the three books also have a comparison of people that have problems in life or forced to be in a problem

In the novels Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, the theme of loss can be viewed as an umbrella that encompasses the absence of independence, society or community, love, and order in the lives of the two protagonists. They deal with their hardships in diverse ways. However, they both find ways to triumph over their losses and regain their independence.

In the poems you have studied a recurring theme is that of ‘loss’. This can take many forms: death; identity; hope or loss of innocence