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Life and death in literature
Essay on death theme
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Life and death in literature
Essay on death theme
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Snap Back to Reality: A comparative essay of “The Cask of Amontillado” and “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” In the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe uses the notion of reality to hint towards Montresor's true intentions for Fortunato. As Montresor leads Fortunato down the catacombs, he once again masks the reality of his true intent fooling both Fortunato and the reader. “Be it so,” I[Montresor] said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily.
Farquhar gets captured by the Union troops and he realizes that he’s going to die from getting hanged. Meanwhile, the noose is around Farquhar neck and he starts to daydream about the possibility of noose breaking and falling into the creek. He then escapes the Union troops, and finds himself back home where his wife awaits him. As soon as he tries to embrace his wife he is forced back into reality by being hanged.
He finally gets his hands untied using his “Superhuman strength” and as he ends his struggle "The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light.” This creates an image in the reader's head of his limp arms and body floating up to the surface towards the light. As Farquhar leaps toward his wife with wide arms, about to embrace her, he feels "a stunning blow upon the back of his neck" seeing a "blinding white light (blaze) all about him with a sound (...) of a cannon" then suddenly, "all is darkness and silence" (Bierce). This though, being the last sentence before the finale, it ties the whole story to and end with a final foreshadow. It helps foreshadow the events of Farquhar's final death because of the loud cannon shock, the darkness and silence, and finally the white light.
In this two Christian philosophers, Richard Swinburne and Tim O'Connor, discussed the concept of neuroscience and the soul. The first philosopher, Swinburne, believed in the idea of substance dualism while O’Conner supported the argument for emergent individualism. Swinburne starts off by saying one’s physical body is simply the vehicle we interact with the world while the real essence of a person lies within their soul. When it comes to Swinburne’s belief on the soul after death I am reminded of Phaedo and how death will only bring about separation of body and soul.
Farquhar stands on the bridge, hands tied and able to see all that's around him. He stands over the river thinking of his family and the possibility of escaping. He begins to fall into the river and tries to make his way home escaping death. He finally arrives home with
Finding out the differences within the similarities Ambrose Bierce’s short story ‘An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ and “Mark on the Wall’ by Virginia Woolf show similarities and differences between each other. Three similarities can be shown between the two short stories of ‘An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ and ‘Mark on the Wall’. The first similarity is the background settings. Both have a setting of a war, as written “wartime” and “God damn this war!” on each passage.
Similarly, the author had planned the plot out so that there was a big plan in Farquhar’s plan to escape. In the illusion his escape worked, it had many close deaths; gunshots, cannonballs, drowning, chaos. His neck was in pain, and suddenly lost
A question in life that isn’t asked often enough is, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?” People rarely take a step back and ponder about how fortunate they are to encounter the little things in life; the things like eating, sleeping, exercising, conversing, and more. They take it all for granted. The idea of death may seem like the end, but really it is the beginning of a new experience.
Farquhar’s merely escapes being shot by the soldiers and vividly describes his surroundings. Ambrose depicts what Farquhar visualizes when “He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them” (Bierce ). One knows that he is a good distance from the trees since he is in the river and looking at the forest. This concludes that he is not living in reality at that moment due to the impossibility of being able to see the leaves and insects in such detail from far away. Hence, he will most likely still be hanged since nothing he is experiencing is real.
Throughout the story, Bierce writes in a way that seems to oppose the theme he uses. Through Bierce’s telling of the story, he suggests fantasies like Farquhar’s are cowardly and will often lead to negative consequences (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” 163) “…he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like a shock of a cannon – then all is darkness and silence.” (Bierce) This quote, near the end of the story, is what reveals that Farquhar has been fantasizing the whole length of the story. The quote also shows that he is ultimately executed and that the fantasy was his personal distraction from the harsh reality he faces.
What is life after death? Since the beginning of time, many people have wondered what happens after death. I chose to read and provide a synopsis of the chapter “Life After Death” by William L. Rowe. There are four main parts discussed in the chapter: the varieties of immortality, the meaningfulness of immortality, the case for immortality, and the case against immortality. By the end of this synopsis, I will explain a better understanding of whether or not we can believe there is life after death.
In this article, Linkin addresses the narrative techniques used by Bierce in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The argument presented is that Bierce “deliberately discloses his readers to affect a mimetic correspondence between the audience’s perception of the text” (137). Linkin reveals that shifting points of view during the story allow the readers to believe what is being said by the character Peyton Farquhar is taking place at the moment he is speaking. These techniques also manipulate how much time has elapsed while Peyton speaks. Linkin does a decent job of arguing her point.
When we cease to fear death, we cease to experience
“All life is energy and energy cannot be destroyed but just transferred” was stated by Leo Simons. According to the Bible, John 11.25, “Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live”. Brian Keene said,” when you died, you were supposed to live on in the memories of others”. By quoting these people, one -can shed light on the different approaches to the belief – “life after death”. It is argued by scientists and rationalists that “life after death” has no logical rational.
Differentiation between the two can be likened to being asleep and awake. We are not unaware of the fact that the sleeping person who has no feeling is quite different from the one who is awake and can perceive all his surroundings. A man who is asleep may wake up from his sleep and discover that all beautiful or ugly things he saw in his sleep are not but mere dream. A lot is happening while asleep but hardly do a few of them come to reality in real life. This is a typical example of our (immediate) life after death.