Views of Heaven in From the Fifteenth District
analytical Essay
955 words
Views of Heaven in From the Fifteenth District
Mavis Gallant presents us with a disconcerting view of death in the short story "From the Fifteenth District," where dying is not a salvation from the pains of life but where the dead are forced to suffer eternally. In this story, the author sets out three distinct cases of 'haunting,' except that these hauntings are reported by the dead about the living. Major E. Travella, killed during World War I, is angry that he is being exploited by the church and the public. Mrs. Ibrahim is upset that her doctor and social worker are fighting over her death. Finally, Ms. Essling is frustrated that she is unable to get on with her 'life' after death because of her husband. All three of these individuals are harboring anger and hostility after death and are unable to move on and rest in peace.
Major Emery Travella feels as if the church is trying to capitalize on his death. When the Major visits the church for Communion he realizes that the congregation is not there to pay tribute to God but instead, "the congregation sits, hushed and expectant straining to hear [his] footsteps" (282) which signal his haunting of the church. The Major is upset that the church is allowing the congregation to make a mockery of the church by devoting their time to him instead of the Communion which should be the reason they are there. The church is also trying to profit by the Major's haunting by allowing cameras and tape recorders into their place of prayer. Travella feels that the church is sacred and is supposed to be seen as a place of worship, not a place to record abnormal phenomena. Major E. Travella feels that he is not being respected by the congregation, instead, he is being insulted by people only caring about him because he is a ghost, not because of who he was as a living person.
Mrs. Ibrahim is bothered that her doctor and social worker cannot settle their differences in opinion in their accounts of her death. She does not see the point of fighting over her because she is no longer living and has died of natural causes. They are both lying to save themselves from punishment, and even though no one was at fault, they were both trying to place the blame on the other.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how gallant presents us with a disconcerting view of death in "from the fifteenth district," where the dead are forced to suffer eternally.
- Analyzes how major emery travella feels that the church is trying to capitalize on his death by allowing cameras and tape recorders into their place of prayer.
- Analyzes how ms. ibrahim is bothered that her doctor and social worker cannot settle their differences in opinion in their accounts of her death.
- Analyzes how ms. essling is bitter that her husband isn't allowing her to 'live' a happy life after death because he keeps on saying how perfect and wonderful she was.
- Opines that they must have one person, preferably female, on whom they can depend absolutely, who will never betray them even in her thoughts.
- Analyzes how mr. essling was not getting married for love but to acquire someone that could help raise his children and'serve' him while he works on his lifelong passion.
- Analyzes how gallant's "from the fifteenth district" contradicts our comforting views of life after death and shows it as a place that can be eternal misery, sadness and anger.
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- A Pleasant Demiseanalytical essayWithin weeks of her unexpected visit, their grandmother went to purchase her own coffin from Detweiler Funeral Parlor and her grandchildren learned that she enjoyed visiting the Pleasanton Cemetery to speak to the dead. Like most southerners their grandmother Margaret had fashioned a small and personal art form out of ancestor worship, and the authentic intimacy of cemeteries made her happy. She looked upon the prospect of death as a journey. The subject of her own death filled her with pleasant reveries of journeys both imminent and surprising .Margaret did not attend church regularly or openly profess a belief in God, because of this it gave her license to embrace a more exotic prescriptive of her spirituality. She maintained an innocent trust in horoscopes and planned her days around the proud alignment of stars. With careless curiosity she sought the advice of fortune tellers, and believed in the shining power of crystal balls. A gypsy in Visalia had read Margaret’s palm and made a prediction that Margaret would not live past her sixty-fifth birthday. Margaret had just turned sixty-two when she came back to Pleasanton to make peace with her son and three grandchildren that she had abandoned for so many years. But she took the gypsy’s death sentence with a stoical and bemused gravity, and began to prepare for her own demise as thought it were a voyage to a fabulous country whose borders had been long closed to tourists. When it came to purchase her casket and to make final arrangements of her internment she insisted that her grandchildren accompany her. Always the teacher Margaret wanted to teach her grandchildren not to fear death. She spoke about the impending purchase of her coffin with gaiety and acted as though she were ab...
In this essay, the author
- Narrates how margaret fashioned a small and personal art form out of ancestor worship and the authentic intimacy of cemeteries made her happy. she kept an innocent trust in horoscopes and planned her days around the proud alignment of stars.
- Analyzes how margaret wanted to teach her grandchildren not to fear death. she spoke about the impending purchase of her coffin with gaiety and acted as though she were about to confirm a hotel reservation.
- Describes how the undertaker albert detweiler, dressed in a dark suit and his hands were folded against his stomach in an attitude of enforced piety, said he was only here to serve his best interests.
- Narrates how detweiler walked to a mahogany casket in the center of the room, tapped it affectionately with his hand and declared, "there’s no use looking any further margaret."
- Describes how margaret moved a straight-backed chair over to the first casket detweiler showed her, and carefully removed her shoes and climbed nimbly inside of it.
- Describes francis abrams as a grandly proportioned woman who struck immediate terror in the hearts of children.
- Analyzes how francis and detweiler briskly crossed the room and stood beside the casket scrutinizing their grandmother.
- Narrates how margaret hopped out of the casket, slipped her shoes back on her feet, and whispered, "i know the back way out." harrison and clara rolled into each other's arms trying to stifle their laughter.
1709 wordsRead More - theanalytical essayPoe wrote stories of the macabre that horrify the world still today. He was able to accomplish that by using the elements of what was regular everyday life to put a scare into the reader. In his short story, The Premature Burial, he takes stories of death and puts an even more horrific spin on it. The way he wrote it reflected on a time when the technology was not available, to accurately determine medical issues including and leading up to death. In this paper, we will look at the fear Edgar Allen Poe caused with stories of premature burial. Mainly because of the modern technology available, how that due to lack of proper training and education of the person trusted to make that decision led to many mishaps, like buried alive. However, accidentally is not the only way someone can be buried while still alive. We will also explore the use of that plot device in some of his other stories.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that poe's writing of death reflected the times in which the stories were first published. premature burials were not a common occurrence back then that they did happen more than they do now.
- Explains that the modern mortuary procedure prevents the burying of people alive, like in the prematurial burial.
- Analyzes how the narrator's story about the wife of the congressman would have ended differently today.
- Analyzes how poe wrote that mademoiselle lafourcade's husband neglected her for a long time over the years, which would explain why she was hastily buried.
- Analyzes the story of the military officer who was thrown from the horse. the porous soil that saved his life would have been dead long before he was placed in the ground.
- Explains morder, mike, and decomposition of body after death.
- Explains poe, edgar allan, and byron glaser's the cask of amontillado. mankato, mn: creative education, 1980.
- Explains that poe, edgar allan, barbara j. raheb, and ruth e. adomeit, the premature burial, van nuys, ca, 1981.
- Explains corner, george w., two centuries of medicine: a history of the school of medical, univ. of pennsylvania.
- Cites a good goodbye funeral planning for those who don’t plan to die for "u.s. undertakers in the 1800s."
- Explains mckone, harold t., "embalming: a "living" rite." today's chemist at work dec. 2002: 33-34.
- Summarizes the u.s. bureau of labor statistics' "summary."
- Explains pasquesi, andy, "funeral home human body preparation | ehow." demand media, 08 oct. 2009.
- Narrates decomposition - body changes at australian museum.
- Analyzes how edgar allen poe's the premature burial reflects on a time when technology was not available to accurately determine medical issues including and leading to death.
- Analyzes how edgar allen poe's story, the cask of amontillado, is different from his other stories because the main action of the story is the act of murder.
1365 wordsRead More - The Tell-Tale Heart, Hop Frog, And The Masque Of The Redanalytical essayThe traumatic life adversities Edgar Allan Poe has overcome, and experienced in his lifetime are insurmountable. Although these hardships were painful, it were these that helped shaped and establish the sheer horror, fear, and inevitability of death in his stories such as “The Tell Tale Heart”, “Hop Frog”, and “The Masque of The Red Death.”
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how edgar allan poe's traumatic life adversities helped establish the horror, fear, and inevitability of death in his stories.
- Analyzes how poe establishes horror into the writing because it gives more evidence on how the narrator is slowly turning against himself.
- Analyzes how poe creates an ominous and overhanging atmosphere of fear and revenge in his stories.
- Analyzes how poe conveys multiple messages throughout his stories, such as the perilous atmosphere in "masque of the red death" and the inevitability of death.
- Analyzes how edgar allan poe fabricates sheer horror, fear, and the inevitability of death into his stories. his hardships in his life allowed him to be a well renowned and successful writer.
801 wordsRead More - Analysis: The Premature Burialanalytical essayPart A: The Premature Burial is an imperfect clerestory literal by Edgar Allan Poe where he exhibit the rehearsal venerate of being hidden unexpired by psychoanalyze sample of this conclusion. The anecdotist interpret how frighten it was for him being prematurely hidden. The planting charm location in the intermediate of the 19th hundred at the saver’s asylum in Richmond, Virginia. At the consequence of the clerestory, the chronicler expound how, “There are moments when, even to the regular observation of Reason, the mankind of our downcast Humanity may presume the show of a Hell—but the conceit of subject is no harmless, exploring its every cav is not without venture. Alas! the ghastly multitude of mortal terrors cannot be remark as wholly visionary—but, they must slumber, or they will gobble us—they must be support to sleep, or we decrease.” The narrator's name resolve that it is unwholesome to harp on alarm. If one focalize too much on solicitude in a indirect distance, then nothing will ever go upright. Fear is an unlovely trepidation purpose inducement by opinion that someone or something is hazardous. People all around the circle see the moral code of dread and the consequences that direction to it. If nation center too much on venerate
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how edgar allan poe exhibits the rehearsal venerate of being hidden unexpired by psychoanalyze sample of this conclusion.
- Opines that the slavish in the basement, the premature burial, is that you at last, will superabundance your esteem as nationwide.
- Analyzes poe's use of unendurable ravishment of the bellows, suffocating smell from the moist inter, release cloth, close dwelling, blackness of unlimited ignorance, whist alike a see that engulf.
- Analyzes how the raconteur's comparison of sank, brief by contemptible, into a side faint, without grieve or capacity to rouse, or, closely declamation, toguess, is hint that, its difficult for him to recover his own govern
- Opines that an eccentric comes into the imagine and scarceness him to show him graves of other nation.
- Analyzes how the man sketched a casket in the encoffin, where if he was thronged, there would be dissimilar straddle in command to get out.
- Analyzes how catalepsy sets forth how he commences to "watch up", so if it's literally unwavering, but then artless his inspection.
- Analyzes how the backer pilcrow portrays his emotions to prove and pronounce and move and it rouses to show engraving that he is indeed in a basket, still unextinguished.
- Analyzes how the raconteur gin to sport out after realizing he could actively be in a basket and attempt to withhold appease after remark.
- Analyzes how changing the opinion to abrupt assist rely pause since of the talk and wordbook, as well as how he uses his saw building.
- Analyzes how the reciter is reobtain his memorial that he was on a sail with his favor and that when they were obtainable to nap, it had an embed that was basket-resembling.
- Compares the sail and his defeat solicitude to constrain an affinity, the hearse and how he slept, and not being competent to move in a kist to catalepsy
- Analyzes how the man settles on being a modern subject and diversifies for why he drunk his discomfit venerate, in his own journey. his cataleptic disturbance is gone as well after watch up.
- Analyzes how he is aphorism that, sir not delay your defeat danger waste you, to visage them. his defeat dreadfulness could be an invention of your purpose.
1230 wordsRead More - Edgar Allan Poe Similaritiesanalytical essayDeath; an event that many wish to avoid and all must come to face; it is easily one of the most terrifying subjects in the world. But in the stories “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Black Cat” it is a reoccurring topic which presents itself in varying forms. In “The Tell-Tale Heart, death shows itself in the form of a bed; the bed crushed and/or suffocated the victim, an old man. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the form death claims is a brick wall; in
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes the themes of death, murder, and betrayal in edgar allan poe's stories. the tell-tale heart, the cask of amontillado and the black cat share multiple common themes.
- Analyzes how murder is one of humanity's most abhorrent crimes against nature. "the tell-tale heart" describes its murder as a spur-of-the-moment decision that resulted in the man going to prison.
- Analyzes how dante placed those who betrayed others in the deepest circle of hades where they are punished by satan himself.
418 wordsRead More - Symbolism In The Masque Of The Red Deathanalytical essayAll things come and go same with people. In the short story “masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe. Tells the reader a greedy prince who is hiding from death but death will happen even when isolate death will eventually come. To enhance his allegory of death in “the Masque of the Red Death,” Poe expresses everyone is equal in the eyes of death through his portrayal of the 7 rooms the hallway and the stranger.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how edgar allan poe's "masque of the red death" tells the reader a greedy prince who is hiding from death but death will happen even when isolate death eventually comes.
- Analyzes how poe's 7 rooms represent the 7 stages of life. the symbol represents with the gloomy black and scarlet red blood like design of the room.
- Analyzes how the hall represents the path through life and how it's not a straight shot. the apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embarrassed but little more than one room.
- Analyzes how the stranger spreads death in the castle, showing that no one can hide from death.
- Analyzes how poe uses the symbolism of the 7 rooms the hallway & the stranger to show everyone is equal in the eyes of death.
483 wordsRead More - Comparing Death in D.H. Lawrence’s The Horse Dealer’s Daughter and Katherine Mansfield’s The Gardenanalytical essayControlling the movements of the short stories, death is a regnant theme in D.H. Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” and Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party.” Death brings forth consciousness and it excites the need for an epiphany within the protagonists. To a lesser extent, death creates tremors in the worlds of the antagonists. Death furthermore makes the indifferences of the secondary characters more pronounced. Affecting the lives of the protagonists, the antagonists, and the secondary characters of these two short stories, death plays an integral role in the themes of these works.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how mabel, the twenty-seven year old spinster, is revived physically and spiritually after her submergence in the "dead cold pond."
- Analyzes how laura in mansfield's "the garden party" reaches a new level of understanding about life through the death of scott the carter.
- Analyzes how the antagonist, jack ferguson, is spiritually devoid as the woman he rescues from the pond.
- Analyzes how apathy marks the secondary characters in "the garden party."
- Analyzes how death resonates throughout both short stories and spurs the growths of the protagonists and antagonists. the secondary characters are unfazed by death, thus uncovering their insensitivity towards the loss of others.
- Compares the themes of d.h. lawrence's the horse dealer’s daughter and katherine mansfields' the garden party. death brings forth consciousness and excites the need for an epiphany within the protagonists.
- Analyzes how the secondary characters in "the horse dealer's daughter" are unmoved by the death of others because they themselves are spiritually dead.
- Describes lawrence, d.h., and mansfield, katherine, in norton anthology of english literature.
1662 wordsRead More - Social Commentary on Zombies in Movies and Litaratureanalytical essayWriters like Edgar Allen Poe in short story “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” put their own spin on the dead coming back to life. Poe mesmerizes his friend,...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how the movie white zombie brought the concept of zombies and horror to the american public by bringing the story to life through film.
- Opines that the most significant romero movie so far was dawn of the dead, a commentary on our unquenchable need to consume based on pure instinct.
- Analyzes how max brooks's novel, world war z, leaves room for hope. it is told by looking back at the war through interviews.
- Opines that they have found the first half of the semester to be very enlightening. the zombie genre, social commentary, and insight into their personal flaws have opened their eyes.
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1424 wordsRead More - Guy de Maupassantanalytical essayWhen death has once entered into a house, it almost invariably returns immediately, as if it knew the way, and the young woman, overwhelmed with grief, took to her bed and was delirious for six weeks. Then a species of calm lassitude succeeded that violent crisis, and she remained motionless, eating next to nothing, and only moving her eyes. Every time they tried to make her get up, she screamed as if they were about to kill her, and so they ended by leaving her continually in bed, and only taking her out to wash her, to change her linen, and to turn her mattress.
In this essay, the author
- Narrates how the young woman, overwhelmed with grief, took to her bed and was delirious for six weeks. she remained motionless, eating next to nothing, and only moving her eyes.
- Analyzes how the woman remained inert and secluded for fifteen years.
- Narrates how the germans came to cormeil in december and split the stones. they were lying in an armchair, unable to move on account of the gout.
- Recounts how they defiled past interminably, with that peculiar motion of a puppet on wires, which belongs to them. the officers billeted their men on the inhabitants.
- Narrates how the officers had been told that the lady was ill, and they did not trouble themselves about that in the least. they asked what her illness was and were told she'd been in bed for fifteen years, in consequence of terrible grief.
- Analyzes how the commandant insisted upon her receiving him. he was shown into the room and said to her roughly: 'i must beg you to get up, madame, and come downstairs so that we may all see you.
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541 wordsRead More - A Comparison of Death in The Scarlet Letter and My Antoniaanalytical essayIt is universally acknowledged that one who comes into this world must also leave. Just like everything else, even life and death is a binary composition. You cannot have one without the other. Although not many people like to think about it, death is a very important factor not only in life, but also in literature. Most often, death is portrayed as evil or gruesome, especially in commercial fiction. However, there are literary texts, which portray death through other factors. Through the depiction of the deaths of Arthur Dimmesdale and Mr. Shimerdas in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Willa Cather's My Antonia, respectively, the reader is able to associate the significance of such issues as guilt, revenge/murder, religion, and the consequences of the two deaths. It may seem odd that instead of concentrating on the central female characters to portray these important issues, I have chosen two male characters. However, it is through the deaths of the male characters that the central females, Hester and Antonia are able to shine as women.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that life and death are a binary composition, and that the characters hester and antonia shine as women through the deaths of male characters.
- Analyzes how the death scenes in the scarlet letter are ambiguous and leave the readers to judge for themselves. the death scene is powerful and full of remorse
- Analyzes how arthur's death, showing roger how he had sinned, acknowledging pearl and relieving her of her "...errand as a messenger of anguish" is melodramatic.
- Analyzes how mr. shimerdas' death in my antonia is a sorrowful event, not melodramatic, but realistic. his family's suffering and religious aspects are humane and possible.
- Analyzes how arthur dimmesdale, the father of pearl, and the lover of hester pynne, carries with him the guilt of silence, which affects his behavior and health.
- Analyzes how mr. shimerdas' death in my antonia is a result of guilt.
- Analyzes how roger chillingworth does not physically harm arthur, but he psychologically gains his revenge upon him.
- Analyzes how mr. shimerdas' death is also two-sided, but he is not as fortunate. he is found with a gash on his face and krajiek sneaking around.
- Explains that life and death go hand in hand, as do death and religion. arthur confesses his sins to god and acknowledges himself to hester and pearl.
- Analyzes how in the scarlet letter, religion is represented as a means for salvation, since arthur is unable to find peace until he has confessed, but in my antonia, mr. shimerdas commits suicide.
- Analyzes how the deaths of arthur and shimerdas affect the lives of the central female characters. hester displays her strength throughout the novel, yet proves to hold even more inner strength after the death of her lover.
- Explains that hester leads after arthur's death is of her own choice. she is no longer accepting her fate to protect the identity of pearl’s father.
- Analyzes how hester displays her inner strength by making her own choices in a society where she is damned.
- Analyzes how the deaths of arthur dimmesdale and mr. shimerdas highlight the importance of religion.
2306 wordsRead More