Loving The Dead Literary Analysis

I contend that the narrator in “Loving the Dead” struggles with conflicting emotions of hatred and resentment and resolves the conflict by doing exactly what her grandparents did all their life, drink. The narrator of “Mud” feels love and admiration toward his family members but resolves his opposing emotions by making them proud of him by having a good job and being responsible.
While a number of differences between “Loving the Dead” and "Mud” are fairly obvious, similarities are concealed throughout the two. It is perceptible that the two narrators feel completely different about their relatives, but is it noticeable that they may actually feel the same. Another difference is how the two characters dealt with their losses and what their families

Flourish and self-pity, they are far from the same object. In “Loving the Dead,” Louis says that he “will sit in the snow, smoke a cigarette and drink from his bottle, and wait for winter to end” (Currie Jr. 40). After the death of his grandparents, he went down the same path as his role models; he succumbed to alcohol and tobacco, he was wallowing in his own self-pity by surrendering his well-being to the intoxicating beverage; but in “Mud,” the young man decided to better his future by busying himself with responsibilities and commitments. He had a business meeting to go too early that morning and instead of loathing in his despair he decided to utilize his emotions and turn them into a preferable future for himself. His family taught him to have “a good sense and my sound judgement and the right frame of mind” (Forsyth 231). The two narrators had disparate lessons they held on to after their loved ones passed on. One was taught love whilst the other was taught

The raconteurs shared their pleasant memories of when they were kids. Throughout the two short stories they had flashbacks to their childhood, of these memories, they all held a quality characteristic. The memories were an exemplary product to think about from time to time. Louis in “Loving the Dead” claimed that he hated everything about his grandparents. He hated the thought of his “grandfather giving him candies and whispering in his ear or his grandmother’s hands, which were pricked by sewing needles and scaled by wash water” (Currie Jr. 42 and 43). He claims to hate these memories, but continues to think of it, he only stated to hate these flashbacks because he can no longer have those with his grandparents. He uses parallelism by saying he hates everything about them, but he is only saying this to cover up the fact he actually loves and misses these fun and exciting times with his role models, which is similar to “Mud.” He remembers how his “grandmother’s biggest pet peeve was having to ask twice for something she wanted and how his father watched a total of seven hours watching All in the Family” (Forsyth 229 and 230). He keeps these commemorations in his mind at all times, he wants to please his family so he constantly thinks of them and the attributes he remembers of them the most; like how his father used to call him “Kiddo” and those minimal thoughts keep him going to achieve the betterment of his