“The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.” – Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild “I can sing a true song about myself, tell of my travels” (Line 1-2) and in this lyric poem that is exactly what the reader is faced with themes about human nature, life and God “The Seafarer” is a monologue from an old man at sea, alone. The main theme in The Seafarer is isolation and exile and the speaker talks in a negative tone exile but this can do more good for the soul then most people assume. Everyman struggles with life and different hardships this poem compares the fear of the sea to everyday hardships of every human being. The key to this situation is not to surrender to fear and the author shows this idea throughout the poem that we should not be fearing of this world but rather surrender to God. Exile isn’t always bad although suffering hurts man spirit is does more good then constant happiness and power. We have to beat the walls God has set in our fate believes the sailor and in this poem he doesn’t exactly that to become and better follower of the Lord but more importantly then that a better being as a whole. The author shows the reader the sea just as the sailor does as death, but more than death as a chance to do something with their lives and be fulfilled through the... ... middle of paper ... ...n to me eager and unsatisfied; the solitary bird screams, irresistible, urges the heart to the whale's way over the stretch of the seas.” (Line 60-66). “Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.” - Alexander Supertramp May 1992 Work Cited Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreSome of the most intriguing stories of today are about people’s adventures at sea and the thrill and treachery of living through its perilous storms and disasters. Two very popular selections about the sea and its terrors are The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” by Henry Longfellow. Comparison between the two works determines that “The Wreck of the Hesperus” tells a more powerful sea-disaster story for several different reasons. The poem is more descriptive and suspenseful than The Perfect Storm, and it also plays on a very powerful tool to captivate the reader’s emotion. These key aspects combine to give the reader something tangible that allows them to relate to the story being told and affects them strongly.
“The Seafarer” voluntarirly gives up on the worldly things in life that you should follow in a christain life style. He abandons all love; from relationships and community. “Hardship groaned around my heart.” This is used to give the reader a sense of emotions of the seafarer. Even though the seafarer is desparing because he is alone, he is glad to be out on the sea because of a loss. He actually goes out in search of a new home and a happiness. This poem is written in the envelope style, which switches back-and-forth to inside and outside speakers. “The Wanderer” has much more of a mournful mood than “The Seafarer”. The wanderer believes that God is the “our every
Throughout the movie Snow Falling on Cedars, the sea represented life and death on many occasions and Scott Hicks was trying to convey the idea that one mans blessings can also be his downfall. The sea was a way of life for the fishermen, but i...
Roughly halfway into the poem, his religious outlook is revealed as he expresses how “the joys of the Lord are hotter for me than this dead life, loaned on land” (64b-65). Even though the hardships of a seafarer appeals to the speaker, he thinks of himself as a “dead” man who would rather enjoy “the joys of the Lord” (64b-65). The speaker addresses the unexpectedness of death for those “who dreads not the Lord” and the utter instability of the earth (106). “The Seafarer” presents the idea that the Lord is the only stable thing in the universe and the cure to the inner conflicts of the speaker. The speaker’s continued explanation of the short life of earthly things emphasizes this idea. The sea travel before ultimately and undoubtedly becomes a metaphor of the spiritual journey of a devoted Christian.
They again make for the open sea, truly upset and embittered. When the captain sees a man on shore, hope springs alive again. This is a truly human quality. Each crew member looks for signs of hope in the man’s gestures. They think the man sees them. Then they think they see two men, the possibly a crowd and perhaps a boat being rolled down to the shore. A sign of a savior in man. After fighting nature for so long thy desperately want to be saved by man. They stubbornly think that help is on the way as the shadows lengthen, the sun sets, and the sea and sky turn
One quality the setting presents to comprehend The Seafarer plot is the visual it creates in the reader's mind. The story does a great job with this as the details within the lines are very vivid, with just allows the readers to create a mental picture of what is going on with the selection. One example of this can be shown right away in lines 1-3 as The Seafarer states, "I can make a true song about me myself, tell my travels, how I often endured days of struggle, troublesome times" (1-3). In this statement one can start to imagine all these
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
reality of age and social position paralyzes his character with fear. The poem opens with six lines
The beginning of the poem instills both the physical and mental awareness of the speaker, a person engrossed with the sensory imagery displaced before them. In the first few lines of the poem, the visual imagery suggests a feeling of calamity and serenity with phrases like “The sea is calm to-night.” “The tide is full, the moon lies fair” and “o...
introduction to the sea in literature.” (1946b, 72) In “Tales of the Sea” (1898) ––an
Throughout the poem, suffering plays an important role in the mariner becoming conscious of the importance of respecting nature. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Riders to the Sea is a short poetic play that depicts the perennial failure of those who work with and on the sea. The play is a mere moment in the lives of few characters, but it holds within it the meaning of what they and the millions like them have done and suffered. The play reflects reality in which people have to struggle for a living, but unlike most of his work this play is not concerned with social, political or nationalistic issues, it cuts behind the surface engaging its characters in the most elemental kind of struggle- that for existence. Thanks to the realistic, highly descriptive and plausible language Sing uses to tell his story, after the very first lines reader in his mind gets the picture of the cruel, wild and rough terrain. Syng uses that kind of language to describe the conflict between human beings and nat...
"The Symbolism of The Old Man and the Sea." 123helpme!. 2000-2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. .
Santiago went through many turmoil’s in his life and his story is one of wisdom in defeat from the lengthy time of which he could not catch anything to that of his loss of the marlin to the sharks after such a lengthy battle to catch it then attempt to bring it back to shore. Now I could go on and on like any other paper about all the symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea but no matter what I did while reading it, in almost every aspect it screamed out to me as an impersonation or reflection of Hemingway’s own life in a multitude of ways that no one can deny. The Old Man and the Sea was an allegory referring to the Hemingway’s own struggles to preserve his writing i...