Narrative pieces often portray life as an acute up and down rollercoaster ride, with extreme moments of happiness and pain occurring in sequence. However, human nature and experience can more accurately be denoted as a constant slow shift between states and emotions. This leads to a consistent feeling of uncertainty to varying degrees, a state that Alice Munro masterfully portrays in the short story “Floating Bridge.” The structure of “Floating Bridge” serves to mirror, both through its content and narrative techniques, the symbol of life as a floating bridge, from the title to the conclusion of the story.
The author structures the short story according to several shifts to portray the uncertainty we inevitably experience daily. Jinny, the main character, suffers from cancer. She manages to come to terms with this news, but now she has to experience another shift. Through a three-part flashback narrative technique, the author introduces to readers late in the story what the latest news is regarding her health. Jinny remembers that the doctor said, “I do not mean the battle is over, just that this is a favorable sign…we do not know that there may not be more trouble in the future but we can say we are cautiously optimistic” (76). Jinny remembers this crucial shift during a casual conversation. While the readers would expect this shift towards a positive side to bring her joy, Jinny in fact reacts negatively, fact shown by her inner reflection: “It was too much. What he had said made everything harder. It made her have to go back and start this year all over again” (77). Jinny had finally grown used to knowing that she could die soon due to cancer, and now she had to deal with the probability that she would survive.
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At the end, Jinny now shifted, as a result of all the experiences with the teenager, to a happier state of being: “what she felt was a lighthearted sort of compassion, almost like laughter. A swish of tender hilarity, getting the better of all her sores and hollows, for the time given” (85). The author finishes the story with the words “for the time given” to portray how life will always continue to be a floating bridge that shifts slowly, for Jinny and all of us. Jinny seems to realize that, not only is she futile in her attempts to keep life’s bridge steady and certain, but amongst all the shifts, there are many positive ones. She decides that embracing the whole process is best instead of fighting it.
Works Cited
Munro, Alice. “Floating Bridge.” Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2002. Print.
Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established. It was Dr. Quill’s observation that “she was an incredibly clear, at times brutally honest, thinker and communicator.” This observation became especially cogent after Diane heard of her diagnosis. Dr. Quill informed her of the diagnosis, and of the possible treatments. This series of treatments entailed multiple chemotherapy sessions, followed by a bone marrow transplant, accompanied by an array of ancillary treatments. At the end of this series of treatments, the survival rate was 25%, and it was further complicated in Diane’s case by the absence of a closely matched bone-marrow donor. Diane chose not to receive treatment, desiring to spend whatever time she had left outside of the hospital. Dr. Quill met with her several times to ensure that she didn’t change her mind, and he had Diane meet with a psychologist with whom she had met before. Then Diane complicated the case by informing Dr. Quill that she be able to control the time of her death, avoiding the loss of dignity and discomfort which would precede her death. Dr. Quinn informed her of the Hemlock Society, and shortly afterwards, Diane called Dr. Quinn with a request for barbiturates, complaining of insomnia. Dr. Quinn gave her the prescription and informed her how to use them to sleep, and the amount necessary to commit suicide. Diane called all of her friends to say goodbye, including Dr. Quinn, and took her life two days after they met.
Terry knew that aches and pains are common in athlete’s lives. At the end of his first year of university there was a new pain in his knee. One morning Terry woke up to see that he could no longer stand up. A week later Terry found out that it was not just an ache he had a malignant tumor; his leg would have to be cut off six inches above the knee. Terry’s doctor told him that he had a chance of living but the odds were fifty to seventy percent. He also said that he should be glad it happened now fore just 2 years ago the chance of living was fifteen percent. The night before his operation a former coach brought Terry a magazine featuring a man who ran a marathon after a similar operation. Terry didn’t want to do something small if he was going to do something he was going to do it big. "I am competitive" Terry said, "I’m a dreamer. I like challenges. I don’t give up. When I decided to do it, I knew it was going to be all out. There was no in between Terry’s sixteen month follow up he saw all the young people suffering and getting weak by the disease. He never forgot what he saw and felt burdened to thoughts that died to run this marathon. He was one of the lucky one in three people to survive in the cancer clinics. Terry wrote asking for sponsorship " I could not leave knowing that these faces and feelings would still be here even though I would be set free of mine, s...
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a story of illusion, decision, and fate. It presents one with a very powerful scenario - one that questions the protagonist 's ultimate destiny, and the concept of good vs. evil. It defines the grey area of deeds by which most humans live, and uses powerful thematic concepts and devices to convey the author 's own value while leaving some space for the reader to make their own choice. Furthermore, this story discusses the life of a man who ended up on the wrong side of history, humanizing yet criminalizing him for his beliefs. This can all be attributed to a wide array of symbols and interactions- all which support the theme of illusion vs. reality. The complex thematic value of this piece stems from multiple aspects – the most important of which are the bridge through both its literal and symbolic meaning, the colour grey in all its depth and broad variations, the essence of time in all of its distortion, and the story 's style of writing.
In the beginning, Michelle is described as despising being at the hospital. She thinks that “the hospital bed is hard and confining”, while she also recalls the painful procedures she is to go through, as “she’d have to lie there, gritting her teeth, while nurses poke and jab to set another IV”. However, when the nurse, Brenda arrives, she reassures Michelle regarding her case going into remission, by mentioning that “cases like yours go into remission for years, and are able to live a relatively normal life”. This is foreshadowing a bright future, where Michelle could go back to her desired normal life, and is later confirmed by Claude, a middle aged man also battling leukemia, who is still alive, despite fighting the illness for nearly eight years. Another case of foreshadowing is in the beginning of the story, when Michelle is imagining the events happening outside of her window, and she thinks to herself, “sometimes the fog got so thick it looked like you could walk right out the window and keep on going”.
One of the main themes of this novel is the fight against cancer. All three of the main characters struggle with cancer. Hazel struggles with her terminal lung cancer, and Isaac has to have his eyes removed because of cancer. Augustus, who has already lost a leg to Osteoscarcoma, struggles with his cancer returning. However, they all learn through this that their cancer does not control them. They still live their lives to the fullest that they can, and make the best of what they have.
Thousands of cancer patients, or any terminally ill patients, wish for life in the end, nevertheless for Vivian, who states, “It is not my intention to give away the plot; but I think I die at the end” (Edson), she knows that may not happen for her. Wit’s conclusion has a great deal to say of peaceful death and salvation and is connected to that theme of “Salvation Anxiety” since Vivian is not afraid of her cancer, Vivian 's peaceful death, and Jason and Susie 's reaction to Vivian 's death.
In Amy Hempel’s Short Story “Going,” we take part in a journey with the narrator through loss, coping, memory, experience, and the duality of life. Throughout the story we see the narrator’s struggle through coping with the loss of his mother, and how he moves from a mixture of depression, denial, and anger, to a form of acceptance and revelation. The narrator has lost his mother to a fire three states away, and goes on a reckless journey through the desert, when he crashes his car and ends up hospitalized. Only his thoughts and the occasional nurse to keep him company. He then reaches a point of discovery and realizations that lead to a higher understanding of mortality, and all of the experiences that come with being alive.
For those who dare take such a risk, they could be met with, “an eternal boon of privacy” or the, “silver reaches of the estuary”, possibly signifying a silver lining at the end of the tunnel. With two contrasting outcomes to a singular situation, the author, Avison, continually pushes the fact that these risks are dangerous, which is exactly only why, “one or two have won” this so called game of a whirlpool. Avision also adds that when a risk-taker becomes defeated by the whirlpool, they, “turn away from their defeat” and most likely become the people who sit, “on the rim of suction” afraid to make another mistake or face the consequences of another uncalculated or miscalculated risk. The, “despair” that people feel as a result of a failure is simply a consequence of enduring the whirlpool, with the “death” described signifying the death of their wonder at what is past the whirlpool in the silver estuary. The second stanza serves to Avison as a continuation of first stanza ideals, with the addition of consequences or benefits of the
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
Astell, Mary. "A Reflections Upon Marriage." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration And The Eighteen Century. Joseph Black [et all]. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006. Print. Pages 297-301.
Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat” speaks directly to Jack London’s own story, “To Build A Fire” in their applications of naturalism and views on humanity. Both writers are pessimistic in their views of humanity and are acutely aware of the natural world. The representations of their characters show humans who believe that they are strong and can ably survive, but these characters many times overestimate themselves which can lead to an understanding of their own mortality as they face down death.
Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” concerns four people who are trying to reach land after surviving a shipwreck off of the Florida coast. During the course of the story, they face dangers that are real physical threats, but they also have to deal with trying to make sense of their situation. The characters in this story cope with their struggles in two ways: individually, they each imagine that Nature, or Fate, or God, is behind their experiences, which allows them to blame some outside force for their struggle, and together, they form a bond of friendship that helps them keep their spirits up. .
As Ross argues, Love represents Munro’s return “to earlier material…[but] in a form that is more complex and multilayered” (786). The collection thus “offers her readers eight stories that seize us by the throat.” In so confining itself to “Love,” therefore, the criticism I have cited above has missed the equally multi-faceted enigma that is the volume’s next story, “Jakarta.” Rather than provide three seemingly disparate timelines that eventually centre on a single act, “Jakarta’s” competing narratives significantly examine one major sequence of events — a series of summer get-togethers that a pair of couples share with their friends sometime around 1959. Its four sections move twice between the internal focalization of Kath Mayberry in the years before 1960, and that of her husband Kent as he strives to recall the same summer (though not necessarily the same sequence of events) in the 1990s — at a distance of more than thirty years and a divorce. Thus, while Munro again employs a third-person narrator throughout the story, the reader instead experiences “Jakarta” as two iterations of one unique narrative, focalized through two distinct perspectives that experience the narrative’s key moments either in the present, or by distant recollection. This way, Michael Gorra’s argument that “Munro will not…allow us to see one moment as the background to the other, to say that the story is about one and not the
Wit is a potent and emotional play that chronicles the last few months of Vivian’s life. With Vivian’s cancer as the main theme, Wit effectively shows the gradual change of Vivian’s attitude towards cancer and the inhuman treatments from doctors. Wit narrates a story of Vivian Bearing, an accomplished English literature professor who is diagnosed with metastatic ovarian cancer. However, in order to complete a research, her doctor, Harvey Kalekian gives Vivian eight months of experimental chemotherapy without clearly explaining the treatments and serious side effects. In addition, Kelekian’s fellow, Jason, as a former student of Dr. Bearing, shows no respect to Vivian. Jason does not consider Vivian as a patient or as his former professor, but a research object of cancer treatment. The play Wit introduces binaries between patients and doctors, students and professors, life and death. Among these different polarities, the comparison between life and death shows the greatest tension and implies the real meaning of death to readers. Death is kind of a rebirth of life. Edson efficiently describes the tension between death and life by making use of antithesis mostly.