Death as a theme in literature is as old as the concept of literature itself. Experiencing someone important to oneself dying is something most human beings can connect to. The difference is how one perceives death and how one deals with it on an emotional level. There are countless examples of books with different, unique interpretations of death but this essay will focus on just two: Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Both of these stories have main characters that must come to terms with death but the ways they go about it and the conclusions they come to are vastly different. Death is used as a literary device to show the benefits of letting go and acceptance of things that people can not change in both The Garden Party and Frankenstein by showing opposite ways one can handle death and the results of those choices.
Death in The Garden Party evolves from being a horrible thing that happens to be a beautiful, peaceful conclusion of someone's life. This change in perception comes to the main character, Laura, as she matures from a child into an adult. As Laura changes throughout the story she goes from treating death as a tragedy to accepting it as a natural event in everyone’s life. After she visits the woman whose husband died the narrator states “What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things” (Mansfield 81). This interpretation of Laura’s feelings by the narrator shows how now she
Many people, after reading “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf or “Once More to the Lake,” would get the general idea that both essays are about death. However, it is apparent to me that both works are really an illustration of the significance of life, but each essay accomplishes this in a different way. I aim to show how these two essays are alike by comparing their similar theme of “carpe diem” as well as some stylistic choices.
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.
Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too
Death is the final stage of an organism’s life. Death can come at anytime and by any means, whether it be severe injury or natural causes. However, death is always an inevitability that comes to every living being on Earth, and is an unavoidable fate. “The Masque of The Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson both present these realities of death to the reader, but by different messages and occasionally methods. Poe focuses on the aspect of time, while Jackson moulds death around luck.
Death is a topic that unites all of humanity. While it can be uncomfortable to think about, confronting death in unavoidable. “Dying” addresses that discomfort and universal unwillingness to consider the inevitability of death. Pinsky’s use of imagery, symbolism, and tone create a poetic experience that is like death, something every reader can relate to. In “Dying,” Pinsky describes how people are oblivious and almost uncaring when it comes to the thought of death. Pinsky is trying to convince the reader that they shouldn’t ignore the concept of death because life is shorter than it seems.
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.
Human-kind has a complicated relationship with death. We intellectually regard it as something inevitable, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling baffled or victimized by it. Wit by Margaret Edson portrays an attempt at understanding this relationship. Its main character, Vivian Bearing, is an accomplished literature professor who is facing the last stage of ovarian cancer. Following Vivian’s last days of life, the work explores mortality by examining one’s personal relationship with death through literature and society’s responsibility toward the dying through characterization.
In these three literary pieces a prevalent theme is death. Death may be defined as the end-ing period of physical life. However, throughout the development of these stories, it was possible to distinguish plenty of physical but even non-physical death as well. This absolutely
Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.
Imagine ink like darkness for the rest of your life, never to see the light again. Imagine never hearing the words of love oozing out of your beloved’s mouth and wrapping your body with warming comfort. Imagine never feeling the gentle touch of a man or woman ever again. Imagine slumber but for eternity where your organs decay and you are no more than a mere frame of bones. Imagine death. Byron states, “all tragedies end in death” and I agree wholeheartedly. In prolonging unhappiness of life there is still peace that one’s life is still whole and that they are alive, however in death there is no light at the end of the tunnel, it is just pure darkness. Vivacious, colorful and musical, Moulin Rouge and dreary, dark and full of betrayal Shakespeare’s King Lear, though very contrasting texts have one thing in common, they both end in death. This essay shows the similarities between these two texts in order to prove that Byron’s statement “all tragedies end in death” is indeed true.
Frankenstein is a gothic novel that many people know the horrors of this creature. Frankenstein, the character was conveyed by the agony that Mary Shelley received from her huge loss several occasions. She was born in London in 1797, her mother died after she was 11 days old, sister committed suicide after she married with Percy Byssche Shelley. She was happy, but afterward she had 3 miscarriages and lost her husband when she was 25. It became a nightmare which is hard for anyone to receive painfully. This tragedy was inspired to write about the Frankenstein. The character, Dr. Frankenstein, a man who engrossed to put life to the dead by bringing several parts of the corpse to sew together. Finally, he made the inhuman live as the monster that
The creation of life is said to be something only God has the power to do, but what if man could create life as well. James McAvoy's character Victor Frankenstein and his assistant, Daniel Radcliffe's character Igor, discover the way to create life in the movie Victor Frankenstein. The movie Victor Frankenstein was produced by John Davis in 2015. When Frankenstein successfully creates an undead monster, he raises questions about creation by God and man made creation.
In the poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, by Emily Dickinson and “Home Burial”, by Robert Frost, literary elements are used throughout both poems to get the message the authors are trying to portray. One main important literary element that is used to entice the reader, is symbolism, because it helps the authors describe something without actual describing it. Symbolism is also used because it shows how significant an object is. Characterization is also an important literary technique because it, gives the reader an idea on how the character would act, work, and their values in life. Death is a topic that is used in both poems. Also, every character express their opinion about death differently.
Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.
There is nothing wrong with anything that could go on as long as they are having their party. Nothing will get in their way from having this party not even a unfortunate death. In the eyes of the main characters the garden is what you’d call a perfect world. The irony begins in the story with her comparing her sister to a butterfly as if she were as free and beautiful as the insect. When in reality no one is really free and this contradicts her life. She sang out a song of sadness which she herself did not realize, this goes back to where Mansfield likes to use broken women as the centerpoint of her stories. Ben Satterfield had one of the best interpretations of her work and realized these patterns in the stories she wrote. One other main factor of her style in this specific work was her use of symbolism which shows up quite prominently in all of her stories. The Garden Party was one of the best examples of the way she wrote and all of the forms of grammar and writing style she used (“Short Stories for Students. Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories