“…one could not be certain witness to anything: Miriam, so vividly there – and yet, where was she? Where, where?” In the fictional short story Miriam by Truman Capote, Miriam is a queer, mysterious little girl who haunts Mrs. H. T. Miller, a widow who lives alone and isolated in an apartment. Throughout the short story, Miriam remains strange and mysterious, and the story ends inconclusively, with the question “who is Miriam?” unanswered. But through evidence found throughout the text, readers are able to speculate who, or what, Miriam is. From my perspective and the evidence gathered, I believe Miriam is a supernatural being; a mischievous Angel of Death who likes to ‘play’ with her victims for a while before she takes them away to the realm of Death.
All the descriptions of Miriam given in the story implies that Miriam is strange and abnormal, and no one but Mrs. Miller can see her; this suggests that either Miriam is in Mrs. Miller’s imagination, and she is fooling herself, or Miriam is a supernatural being and can choose who gets to see her and who can’t. The second one is more supportable, for if Miriam is indeed Mrs. Miller’s imagination, then the question is, why appear now? Mrs. Miller had an organized routine in her life, and was content with it. There is no reason for her to suddenly start imagining Miriam. In the story Miriam is portrayed as a very queer, almost supernatural character, as Miriam’s “hair was the longest and strangest Mrs. Miller had ever seen: absolutely silver-white, like an albino’s. It flowed waist-length in smooth, loose lines. She was thin and fragilely constructed. There was a simple, special elegance in the way she stood…”. Also, in the daylight, “she looked pinched and drawn, her hai...
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...ople to their death is by going to live with them and slowly make them go insane, or watch them die.
Miriam’s presence, or the presence of the Angel of Death, makes Mrs. Miller more aware of her isolated lifestyle, and helps her understand how much of life she had missed. But now it is too late for Mrs. Miller, as Miriam has come to take her away to the realm of Death. Why Mrs. Miller had to die, no one can be sure. The story helps us know that although some privacy and isolation is fine, complete isolation is no good. People completely isolated like that will live a sad life, and perhaps realize a little too late what they have missed out on, and regret it until they die. In conclusion, people should try to recognize their problems fairly quickly and try to fix it, before it is too late and death takes them away.
Works Cited
Miriam, by Truman Capote
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Throughout the novel, crucial family members and friends of the girl that died are meticulously reshaped by her absence. Lindsey, the sister, outgrows her timidity and develops a brave, fearless demeanor, while at the same time she glows with independence. Abigail, the mother, frees herself from the barbed wire that protected her loved ones yet caused her great pain, as well as learns that withdrawing oneself from their role in society may be the most favorable choice. Ruth, the remote friend from school, determines her career that will last a lifetime. and escapes from the dark place that she was drowning in before. Thus, next time one is overcome with grief, they must remember that constructive change is guaranteed to
what they feel morally justified to do. The moral aspects of killing a person would be the
The late first lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it." Mrs. Roosevelt means that although one person may feel alone through the hardships one faces, one has millions beside oneself who can relate to and understand what one may feel. Zora Neale Hurston shows that even though Janie's family and spouses continue to be abusive and harsh toward Janie, their hate and control left her stronger than before, preparing her for the next challenges thrown at her. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the deaths' of close relatives and family positively affect Janie because she tends to become more educated and wiser with each death she overcomes in the obstacles she calls her life.
It tells the story of a woman who lives secluded in mind, body, and soul for about three months in what is a “hereditary estate” (Gilman 462) , but how she portrays to the reader as “a haunted mansion” (Gilman 463). Extremely unhappy in her current situation (a suffering woman who nobody believes is truly ill), she escapes through her writing. Having to keep her passion of writing a secret and hiding it from her husband, housekeeper, family and friends, the story has untold endings to her thoughts due to the abrupt arrival of unexpected guests. The diary helps us to see the quick, spiraling downfall and eventual breakdown of an unstable woman whose isolation from society may have encouraged her imminent disease. Through quickly written journal entries, the audience can see the unfolding of the unstable woman. This enlarges the view of the narrative because it helps show a plot line of the progression of an illness (which is the theme as a whole of the
After reading the title of the poem Sick Room, Langston Hughes, the reader immediately undergoes a feeling of suspense and seriousness. The title explains the room in which the woman is lying in and what her condition is. The reader can speculate that she is not in a room to bring her happiness or good news, but rather a dreary and disheartening environment. Perhaps, because it is being called a “Sick Room” it could be taking place in a hospital room. In this poem, Hughes describes the feeling of the woman who does not have much time to live. She is stuck knocking on death’s door and fighting for a little longer. However, either way she will feel pain which is forcing her to make the best out of either outcome.
... authors conclude that it is through alienation within a small society that ultimately leads to the primary characters’ demise and death. Whether their individual cases are self imposed or externally imposed, the results and the impact are the same, annihilation of the human soul. Their craft make emphatic use of setting to the successful depiction of this theme. Both characters ultimately fall into the abyss of loneliness and despair proving that human existence cut-off and on its own is more destructive than positive . Thus their message seems to suggest that as humans, we need society in order to truly belong and have a connection, purpose and worth in this life, in order to truly live.
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to a request from that person. Involuntary Euthanasia is used to describe the killing of a person
they will die if they perform a certain act, they will be unwilling to perform
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