My dear grandfather passed away last week and I still clearly remember everything that he did with me only a month ago during Christmas break. He looked healthy and energetic. How could a person like that just gone forever so abruptly? It reminds me that life is fragile and death is inevitable. I am a realist, so I could not help thinking if each human being is destined to die some time, then why were we born? It is also the reason why I really like reading people’s opinions about life and death. Two good examples are Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” and Millay’s “O Earth, unhappy planet born to die”. Both Atwood and Millay use sarcastic tone and allusions to focus on the same theme——questioning the real meaning of life.
“Happy Endings” is
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As Atwood says “Beginnings are always more fun” (59) at the end of the seven scenarios, she writes a lot about different events that John and Mary do which are really fun to read no matter good or bad those events are and they are the preparation Atwood does for the upcoming endings. Then let’s look at Millay’s beginning. Millay says “who when his destiny was high/ Strode like the sun into the middle sky/ And shone an hour/ And who so bright as he” (4-6) at the beginning. We can tell that this is a strong and young man by looking at words like “Strode” and “into the middle sky” which is also the preparation Millay does for the ending——the sun went down into the sea and it is relatively fun to read compare to the ending. Now, I can see there is a structural connection between the two pieces. Moreover, we can figure out that Atwood and Millay actually talk about the same theme by looking at “you’ll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it” (Atwood 59) and “And like the sun went down into the sea, Leaving no spark to be remembered by” (Millay 7-8) these two quotes. Atwood uses “face” this particular word when she has lots of other choices like “admit” and “know”. Wouldn’t they be more appropriate words to use there? The purpose of using “face” is to tell readers that she not only wants us to face the fact——there is only one ending for any …show more content…
By using an appropriate tone, it helps me to feel the emotions that the two authors try to put in their stories, so that I can have a better understanding of them. For example, Atwood says “Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be ‘Madge’, ‘can-cer,’ ‘guilty and confused,’ and ‘bird watching.’” (58) at the end of the sixth scenario which did not make sense to me at all when I first read it, because words like “cancer”, “guilty and confused” and “bird watching” totally have no connections with the scenario. How could I use whatever words I want there as Atwood said? However, after I figure out that the story actually talks about the fate of human life. I realize that Atwood is being sarcastic. Her real intention to use those words there is she does not want them to make sense at all, she might even randomly choose those words to show her impatience and carelessness about what our protagonists do when they are alive, so that we can put our attentions on the ending. Also, Atwood gives a summary of the endings of all seven scenarios which is “John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die” (59). Why would she repeat the same words three times? It seems to me that she is really bored by the same ending. Unluckily, she has no ability to rewrite that ending, neither does any of us. On the other side, Millay uses
When Lee first introduced his readers, he started off with a beautiful metaphor to summarize how every human’s life goes as he wrote, “We are circuit boards swallowing the electricity of life upon birth,” (Lines 2 to 3, Lee). To clarify, Lee is explaining the beauty of life when we are alive and how we essentially use this electricity to create unforgettable memories along with emphasizing the importance of existing. However, not long into the poem, a sudden change in the emotion occurs as Lee depicted Stephen’s death with, “…as though his chest were an auditorium his life an audience leaving single file,” (Lines 24 to 25, Lee). In consideration with how the main lesson Lee was applying on his poem, it is easily visible that this sudden change in mood was done purposefully. With this dark simile, readers will be captured and feel that sudden shock in mixed emotion when someone’s death occurs. In effect, not only will readers who have seen death understand, but Lee also taught readers who have not seen a similar event what will happen, allowing any reader to understand the topic even without any past experiences. Quickly after though, Lee re-introduces a cheerful environment with similes to describe the people he has found as he visualized, “…his lungs flapping like sails,” and, “…teeth shinning like
The author, L Frank Baum, uses this irony thematically, with the message being that sometimes what we are looking for in life is right in front of us.
In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Faulkner portrays the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest to honor her dying wish to bury her in the town of Jefferson. Faulkner utilizes humor in the novel to lighten the mood of death and as an act of transgression against the orthodox Christian views of death as it relates to good souls dying and becoming angels. Addie Bundren’s son, Vardaman, relates to the orthodox Christian views of death, and the synonymous use of humor with these views ultimately creates an idea about humanity’s perception of death and how they should live, which is enhanced through John Morreal’s “Humor in the Holocaust: Its Coping, Criticizing, and Superiority” and “‘The Abject’- A Brief Definition.”
In the famous novel and movie series, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, an average teenage girl, Bella Swan, is forced to move from Arizona (where she lived with her mother) to Washington to start an almost new life with her father. She attends a small-town high school with mostly average people, besides one family, the Cullens. As Bella and Edward Cullen get closer, she uncovers a deep secret about him and his family. Their relationship faces many hard challenges and conflicts as the story develops. Both the novel and movie share very similar storylines, however, differ in many ways. From themes to author’s craft, or to relationships, these important parts of the story highlight the significant differences and similarities of Twilight.
In order to portray the theme of with desire comes suffering, Ray Bradbury uses irony. The Hadley family lives in a recently purchased mansion called the “Happylife Home.” This is an example of Bradbury incorporating irony into his short story. The “Happylife Home” was supposed to create the perfect, happy lifestyle for the the Hadleys, but this is clearly not t...
Death is part of the circle of life and it's the end of your time on earth; the end of your time with your family and loved ones. Nobody wants to die, leaving their family and missing the good times your loved ones will have once you pass on. In the Mercury Reader, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “On the Fear of Death” and Joan Didion “Afterlife” from The Year of Magical Thinking” both share common theses on death and grieving. Didion and Kübler-Ross both explain grieving and dealing with death. Steve Jobs commencement speech for Stanford’s graduation ceremony and through personal experience jumps further into death and how I feel about it. Your time is on earth is limited one day you will die and there are many ways of grieving at the death of a loved one. I believe that the fear of death and the death of a loved one will hold you back from living your own life and the fear of your own death is selfish.
At the outset, Atwood gives the reader an exceedingly basic outline of a story with characters John and Mary in plotline A. As we move along to the subsequent plots she adds more detail and depth to the characters and their stories, although she refers back with “If you want a happy ending, try A” (p.327), while alluding that other endings may not be as happy, although possibly not as dull and foreseeable as they were in plot A. Each successive plot is a new telling of the same basic story line; labeled alphabetically A-F; the different plots describe how the character’s lives are lived with all stories ending as they did in A. The stories tell of love gained or of love lost; love given but not reciprocated. The characters experience heartache, suicide, sadness, humiliation, crimes of passion, even happiness; ultimately all ending in death regardless of “the stretch in between”. (p.329)
For instance the Night excerpt can be compared to the other text with the same theme which is ¨Speak up because you never know what might happen.¨ The excerpt Night was an Autobiography about Elie Wiesel and his experience during the Holocaust. IN the excerpt he is talking about Moishe the Beadle experience how they were took and put in a train made for animals and stopped at a destination and were forced to built trenches were the would be killed in. He was injured and left for dead and escaped. ¨How had he, Moishe the Beadle, been able to escape? By a miracle. He was wounded in the leg and left for dead.¨(Wiesel, 7). After he escaped he tried to warn everyone but they thought he wanted their pity and he was imagining things, ¨Some even insisted that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things.¨(Wiesel, 9). This was
In conclusion, it is hard to grasp the true meaning of the story unless the story is read a second time because of the author's style of writing.
The unfamiliar words were helpful by expanding my knowledge about the story and reassuring that I was on the right track. In “Jury of Her Peers”, the word coroner which means an official who investigates an unnatural death, it reassures us that it was a murder in the story. Also, the word apprehensive which means anxious or fearful that something bad will happen, this tells us that something bad will happen, which it did. On the other hand, in the story “The Bear” by William Faulkner, the term indomitable meaning cannot be dominated which lets us know neither the bear or the man was trying not to be dominant over nature. As well as the term immortality meaning something that never dies, such as life after nature never dies.
Jumpei wanted to become immortal by capturing a beetle in the sands – but in the end, it was he who was trapped by the sands. Trying to become immortal, death became his only obstacle. Another example of irony is through Jumpei’s perception of the sand; at first he considers it something in the background, something inconspicuous. (“An aggregate of rock fragments.”) The same is said with death. It is everywhere, all around, and it is simplified to nothing but the ending of life. The irony is also shown with Jumpei’s machine he creates at the end of the novel, called Hope. The machine is aptly named; if it succeeds, he will be free from the sands, and free to return to his escapade to become immortal. However, as he adjusts to his monotonous life living in the sand, he time devoted to ‘hope’ lessens and he begins to make a small, sheltered life for himself. When he finally receives the chance to escape – to be free – to be immortal – he declines. He’s used to his life, with a new purpose – thus, he has lost his fear, his hatred of the sands. Inasmuch, he has lost his aversion to death – like the sands around him, he has accustomed to it. The final bouts of irony are in the beginning of the novel – one is after being missing for seven years, he is declared dead. Thus, the journey he went on to become eternal was what caused him to be forgotten. The other is the quote at the start of the book;
Diction plays a critical role in the development of the tone in a story. The type of words the author uses directly leads to the tone of the entire literary work. If ...
An author’s style of words, sentence structure, and use of figurative language gives an author their own unique style of writing. Although, how an author writes can cause confusion due to connotative use of words and sentence. The author’s style-words, sentence structure, and figurative language can give a reader a description that forms imagery. Also it affects the tone, mood, and theme of the story.
This is how this passage uses figurative language and descriptive language to affect how to reader reads the
Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s This Earth of Mankind is an allegorical novel describing the growth of protagonist Minke during the pre-awakening of colonized Java. Set in 1898 during the period of imperial Dutch domination over all aspects of Javan life, the novel provides a clear image of the political and social struggles of a subjugated people through the point of view of a maturing youth. Using several of his novel’s major characters as allegorical symbols for the various stages of awareness the citizens of Java have of Indonesia’s awakening as a modern nation, Toer weaves together an image of the rise of an idyllic post-colonial Indonesia with modern views of Enlightenment ideals.