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Alden Nowlan's Aunt Jane: The Power Of Fear

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A four letter word effects humans whether awake or asleep, fear. Fear has multiple forms depending of the focus of the person. A few of the possibilities are fear of water, heights, and fearing future choices. Some as the fear of the water could easily be defeated while others are harder to truly find the source. The child in Alden Nowlan’s “Aunt Jane” mysteriously describes fear, both current and future, during an aunt’s last decade in life. Readers will discover two types of fear and a possible way to keep fear away. Readers at first glance should discover the speaker, a little child, is describing an aunt probably after a life altering event or stroke. In the first line the child compares Aunt Jane to a symbol of fear, “Aunt Jane, of whom …show more content…

Nowlan is using the metaphor of a thunderstorm to describe the child’s fear of Aunt Jane’s fate. All readers have experienced a type of childhood fear. A deeper understanding of this child’s fear is found in lines seven and eight, “Christ Lord, if I should die before I wake—I pray the Lord my body take”. The readers by now ought to realize the child’s fear is more than thunderstorms. Those two lines imply a fear of the future. Fear of fate is common among humans. Would their future be similar to Aunt Jane’s or would they be able to control or have a say in what they do and how they are …show more content…

Happening-in-the-present and fate can be affected by one simple method prayer. They should also have spotted the slight difference between a child’s fear and an adult’s fear. Fear from childhood and adulthood may have unique levels to overcome, but the person affected by the fear needs to decide to take the control out of fear’s hands. The child in Nowlan’s poem has only just started down the path to conquer the fear of fate. Conquering fear is not nor will ever be a smooth path, mountains and valleys are a part of the path. Prayer and friends as a backup is also a necessity for the journey. Only time will tell if and when a child or adult no longer fears thunderstorms, heights, and even fate itself. Alden Nowlan left an wonderful example of two different fears with an easy method to drive the fear to oblivion. Fear of the present and fear of fate will disappear when a person’s backup is made of caring friends and prayer warriors. Aunt Jane’s niece or nephew tells how fear limits the hope for the future while commenting on the last decade of her life. Readers still will find encouragement in Alden Nowlan’s poem “Aunt Jane” with facing fear in and of this

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