Although they lead different lifestyles, Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley both deal differently with death in Before the Birth of One of Her Children and To a Gentleman… the latter in a way that is more optimistic than the former. Many similarities are present throughout the writings of the two poets when it comes to the way they speak of death and how to cope with it. Both poets acknowledge their christian beliefs in saying that God holds all power when it comes to death and we, humans, are powerless in that domain. When talking about the fragile subject of death, Bradstreet says, “No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,/ But with death’s parting blow is sure to meet./ The sentence past is most irrevocable,/
A grieving father wrote that “thousands of fathers are in the same position.” Similarly, a widow wrote, “I am only one in many hundreds” (Jalland). Writer and nurse Vera Brittain also wrote in regards to her fiancé, “But if he can face death let me show that I can face the fear of death, and work
Death is always the common thing that people need to face, and most of them would experience a feeling of regret when someone they know finally come to the end of life. Author Ursula K. LeGuin, Isaac Singer, and O. Henry also mentioned the experiences of death in their stories “Gwilan’s Harp,” “The Washwoman,” and “The Last Leaf.” In “Gwilan’s Harp”, Gwilan faced the death of her husband Torm before she realized don’t worry for the worldly things. The death of the washwoman made Singer deliberated deeply about living in a dignity life. The loss of Behrman motivated Johnsy and lightened the torch of “living” in her heart.
Within the lines of Mary Frye’s poem, Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep, the reader learns that dwelling on tragedies that are within the past will prevent you from moving on with life. Frye exemplifies throughout her poem that dwelling on the past will not change anything, you have to overcome your grief allowing the continuation of life. The first and last lines of this poem use a very commanding tone which clearly informs her readers to not weep and stand at her grave, for which she did not die. Furthermore, the speaker of this poem contributes to her theme of healing and perseverance when she comforts the readers and advises them that she is, “ a thousand winds that blow.
Maybe life is just a period of time that we exist in this world. Even though we have to enjoy it purposely, not just living as the robots wait until the day we run out of energy. Some of us find ourselves strong, some of us think that ourselves as weak as we used to be but in fact none of us is weak, nor strong. The difference between us that is having our own different purpose in life. Some of us might have an easy purpose to achieve, some of us might have a tough one to accomplish it.
Death is an inevitable end to one’s life that we hear about constantly. In spite of this, it is not a topic discussed heavily by philosophers, one exception being Martin Heidegger for which death is regarded as one of the most universal yet unique for each individual making it authentic. We see the reoccurring theme of authenticity and death in the book A Very Easy Death by Simone De Beauvoir in which she tells us about the not so easy death of her mother due to cancer, and she examines her mother’s life as it is getting closer to its end while sympathizing with her physical and emotional struggles. From her fall in the bathroom through her stay in the nursing home, Beauvoir’s mother has gone through a fair amount of pain. One thing that was
The darkness and gloom, which encompasses the speaker’s struggle to find happiness in her heartbreak-induced depression, is heightened by the repetition of her morbid thoughts. An image of an “arbitrary blackness” (Plath 5) preventing her from distinguishing beauty establishes the grim scene. Her subsequent admittance that whenever she closes her eyes “the world drops dead” (1) illuminates the morose attitude she obtains as thoughts of death overtake her mind in the wake of her lover’s betrayal. Additionally, this demonstrates the fact that her mind is her only solace from the hell that the living world has become as
Every individual will experience grief within their lifetime and this is revealed by James McAuley and W.H.Auden in their poems “Pieta” and “Stop all the clocks”. These two poems remain similar in the means that two men are experiencing grief. However they both are experiencing it differently with their feelings and the person who died. “Pieta” expresses a grieving father who is accepting of his grief whereas “Stop all the clocks” reflects upon a man who is full of anguish, grieving for the loss of his lover. Exploring the heartache of a grieving father on the anniversary of his child death “Pieta” recounts how a child came metaphorically “early into the light” and “lived a day and night, then died.”
The attitudes to grief over the loss of a loved one are presented in two thoroughly different ways in the two poems of ‘Funeral Blues’ and ‘Remember’. Some differences include the tone towards death as ‘Funeral Blues’ was written with a more mocking, sarcastic tone towards death and grieving the loss of a loved one, (even though it was later interpreted as a genuine expression of grief after the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” in 1994), whereas ‘Remember’ has a more sincere and heartfelt tone towards death. In addition, ‘Funeral Blues’ is entirely negative towards death not only forbidding themselves from moving on but also forbidding the world from moving on after the tragic passing of the loved one, whilst ‘Remember’ gives the griever
The reason it is important to pay attention to her personification of death, her usage of language, and the positive life that she puts death in, is because she wanted to bring awareness of her mental illness and suicide. This is important is because while she was alive, the concept of mental illness was still new and was not well accepted in society. Sexton is trying to bring awareness about suicide and the concept that people who commit or attempt suicide should not be
The poets usually addressed the problem of death in generalities: they reminded readers of the sovereignty of God and deaths regard for earthly rank, power and wealth”(page 152). In Anne Bradstreet’s elegy “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet”, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and a Half Old the struggle with this notion is displayed clearly. The speaker knows that she should accept this notion of “deaths regard for earthly rank, power and wealth”(152), but when she experiences it first hand it becomes increasingly harder with every loss. Different from the first poem, which was in memory of Elizabeth, where the speaker question God, in the poem for Anne the focus is shifted towards the speaker. Throughout the poem, the speaker questions why it is still so hard to accept the death of her grandchildren.
Anne Sexton’s “The Truth the Dead Know” centers on one person’s struggle to overcome her reservations regarding grief and mortality. The speaker, after having attended the funeral of her father only three months after her mother passed way, indignantly leaves the service. While on a trip to Cape Cod with a loved one, observing the tranquil landscape, she reflects on the role of human connection in her life, and chooses to confront her feelings towards the dead. The speaker, initially bitter and resentful towards the concept of death, eventually comes to feel sympathy for the dead and their inability to be human.
Anne Sexton belongs to the group of poets usually regarded as’’ confessional poets’’. She uses her poetry as a means to express her sufferings, mental illness and desire for death. The poem ‘’Wanting to Die’’ published in Sexton’s third collection of poems, Live or Die, demonstrates her obsession with death. It is also her literary suicide note as Sylvia Plath wrote Edge, few days before her death.
Furthermore, the speaker is also able implement more ‘natural’ occurrences of expressed emotion, as seen in women through society’s perspective of social norms. As the speaker explains how his mother is responding to the situation of death, he uses phrasing such as “coughed out angry tearless sighs” in order to emphasize the emotion felt by his family members. The use of emotional diction, such as “angry” and “tearless” works to in order to reach out for the audience’s compassion to try to help them relate to the family’s grief-stricken souls, in addition to feeling the true meaning of death. As a result of this, the reader can also begin to understand the severity of death that the speaker is surrounded by, which can be seen through the “counting bells knelling classes to a close.” Normally, a bell can be used to signify an event of greatness celebration or pain, yet when the word “knelling” is used, it indicates a sorrowful mourning period that the speaker foreshadows.
Louise Glück’s poem, “Aboriginal Landscape” has a strong contrast between life and death, with no connections between them. In the beginning of the poem, the girl is in the real world. She says, “You’re stepping on your father, my mother said / indeed I was standing exactly in the center” (lines 1-2). The word “stepping” gives an automatic assumption that she is visiting her father at the cemetery with her mother looking at his grave. However, it does get a little confusing when she says, “although there is no stone saying so” (4).
