Gray's Elegy Critics have spent entire books interpreting Gray's "Elegy." Is it ironic, as Cleanth Brooks would have us believe, or is it sentimental, as Samuel Johnson might say? Does it express Gray's melancholic democratic feelings about the oneness of human experience from the perspective of death, or does Gray discuss the life and death of another elegist, one who, in his youth, suffered the same obscurity as the "rude forefathers" in the country graveyard? Should Gray have added the final "Epitaph" to his work? Readers whose memories have made Gray's "Elegy" one of the most loved poems in English -- nearly three-quarters of its 128 lines appear in the Oxford Book of Quotations -- seem unfazed by these questions. What matters to readers, over time, is the power of "Elegy" to console. Its title describes its function: lamenting someone's death, and affirming the life that preceded it so that we can be comforted. One may die after decades of anonymous labour, uneducated, unknown or scarcely remembered, one's potential unrealized, Gray's poem says, but that life will have as many joys, and far fewer ill effects on others, than lives of the rich, the powerful, the famous. Also, the great memorials that money can buy do no more for the deceased than a common grave marker. In the end, what counts is friendship, being mourned, being cried for by someone who was close. "He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, / He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend" (123-24). This sentiment, found in the controversial epitaph, affirms what the graveyard's lonely visitor says earlier: "On some fond breast the parting soul relies, / Some pious drops the closing eye requires" (89-90). Gray's restraint, his habit of speaking in universals rather than particulars, and his shifting from one speaker to another, control the powerful feelings these lines call up. They frame everything at some distance from the viewer. The poem opens with a death-bell sounding, a knell. The lowing of cattle, the droning of a beetle in flight, the tinkling of
These strophes also figured in an earlier version of the "Elegy," the "Stanza's Wrote in a Country Church-yard" (ca. 1742), in which Gray chose figures from Roman rather than English history to make his points:
In the film Unseen Tears, Native American families express the impact they still feel from their elders being forced into the Southern Ontario’s Mohawk Institute and the New York’s Thomas Indian School. Survivors of the boarding schools speak of their traumatic experiences of being removed from their families, being abused, and experiencing constant attack on their language and culture.
struggled so valiantly for. As he is being “gutted” in the end, he takes the pain with grace,
...e to cope with the ominous recurring flashbacks and the heart-aching memories he suffered from every day. He may have been able to be saved if he only had an outlet to express his feelings. To that end, the significance of connection and communication between one another cannot be further stressed and hopefully this story was encouragement enough to reach out to fellow loved ones and even acquaintances in an effort to gain better relationships and advance as a society.
Wills conflict in “Shades Of Gray” is that he does not get along with his uncle Jed, because he did not fight in the Civil War. He can solve his conflict if he gets along with his uncle, so how he can resolve the conflict is by spending some time with Jed or letting his uncle give him the reasons why he didn't fight in the war. And why he doesn't also get along with his uncle is because he hasn't ever meant them.My story is going to be man v.s society because Will does not along with his uncle because he did not want to fight in the confederacy. Acceptance becuase Will accepts why his uncle did not fight in the Civil War. And he starts to understand and starts to honor.
...opped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt” (223). The emotion of him were shown throughout the “Dead” and brought the individuals in society closer together through the dark times.
as a tear ran down his face. "Yet I will never forget the family I so
"He was as good a man as he had to be in a life that was hard and
Would have mourned longer!married with my uncle, my father's brother... Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O mo...
and the life he knew was now gone . All he could do now was cry , the only way he knew
...when they lose someone dear to them. However, we need to make the distinction that his words do not dictate how everyone should feel when coping with a loss.
his parents to show them he had hurt him self. At times they even felt
Elegy in a Country Courtyard, by Thomas Gray, can be looked at through two different methods. First the Dialogical Approach, which covers the ability of the language of the text to address someone without the consciousness that the exchange of language between the speaker and addressee occurs. (HCAL, 349) The second method is the Formalistic Approach, which allows the reader to look at a literary piece, and critique it according to its form, point of view, style, imagery, atmosphere, theme, and word choice. The formalistic views on form, allow us to look at the essential structure of the poem.
Suddenly I started weeping. I did not know why I wept for a while. I
A Comparison of Thomas Gray's Elegy (Eulogy) Written in a Country Churchyard and Bryant's Thanatopsis