Many bodies are donated to science but they are not all treated well. David Wagoner Professor of anatomy at Indiana University wanted the bodies to be treated fairly. The meaning of the David Wagoner poem Their Bodies is that the students of Indiana University should be gentle with the bodies. In the first stanza of the poem it describes how his parents were good people and then the second stanza says that the students should treat them just how they would have treated them. The second stanza says, “You should treat them One last time as they would have treated you” (Wagoner 2.2-3).
The poem “Two Bodies” is about the relationship between two people or beings. Paz wants us to see this poem as something more than just lovers it's almost as these two
The poem, written by Todd Hearon, relates to a larger idea about injustice and lack of care about injustice. The corpses he writes about are people who are discriminated against or who are in lower classes of society. Our world beats them down with prejudice and hate, but doesn’t want to admit it, and people try to ignore the problem because it isn’t happening to them. Hearon also capitalizes on the point that the beaten down will eventually come back against this discrimination. If outsiders refuse to help these corpses, then they will find a way for themselves.
Victoria Chang elucidates the merits of one of the more quotidian forms of poetry, the obituary. Local newspapers contain pages of carefully worded odes to the deceased authored by the people who knew them best, many being previously unpublished poets. Writing an obituary for a loved one is a daunting task, one Chang embraces and elevates beyond the blasé traditions. The obituary for her mother on page 6 of her collection subverts expectations by crafting a poem infused with figurative language, imagery, characterization, and diction. Chang adapts the form’s conventions to build a sense of truth, whereas most obits tell palatable lies.
But nobody knows what’s going on inside the preparation room, all they see is their deceased relative, good as new, when they walk by the open casket during the funeral. Mitford depicts the American funeral industry’s manipulation of death throughout the essay with either blatant or thinly-veiled verbal irony. In the last paragraph, Mitford states that the funeral director has put on a “well-oiled performance" where "the concept of death played no part whatsoever”, unless providing it was “inconsiderately mentioned” by the funeral conductors. This is extremely ironic because a funeral is supposed to revolved around death, and this makes us think about funerals and the embalmment process in a way that we usually don’t. These processes takes away the cruelty and brutality of death and make it seem trivial while making our deceased relatives life-like, with pink toned skin and a smile on their face, and death is not like that at all.
Wagoner’s parents were kind and respectful to people all their lives. One example of this is when the author literally states in Their Bodies, “They had been kind to others all their lives and believed in being useful” (Wagoner 2.4-5). This shows that he believes they were kind to many people. This leads to Wagoner concluding his poem in the fashion, “If you’re not certain which ones are theirs, be gentle to everybody” (Wagoner 3.3-4). This means, the author, since his parents were kind during their lives, wants others to be kind and respectful to everyone.
According to ecology.com, nearly two people die each second. All these people deserve to die with respect. All too often, this doesn’t happen. David Wagoner, in his poem Their Bodies, successfully conveyed the message that everyone is different so be as nice to people in death as in life and learn from them.
Respect requires a full time ongoing basis regardless if you’re home, at school, or walking down the street. If you’re the parent, and call your children or spouse names or speak in a conceding manner, you can expect the same behavior from them. Therefore, if you cuss, and punish the child for doing the same thing, you’ve just created a double standard for them to follow. You’re example in life, their portrait to live by.
These traditions in part are described through the theme in the poem being death is less of an occasion with lower class individuals. In “on caskets”, even the title shares the significance of death making a subtle yet important nod due to it being all lowercase. This is to show that death is related to one’s social class. In the poem it speaks of people of traditionally lower class individuals. The lack of theater around a poor person’s death is almost immediately highlighted, “...Egyptians had pyramids with peasants buried in the walls they built…some only get a cold cabinet in the morgue until somebody or nobody claims them as a loss” (Marshall 2).
Our Town Play Response Our Town takes place in the early 1900’s in the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Thornton Wilder, the play writer, is trying to show the importance of the little things in life. Throughout the opening two acts he builds up a scenario, which allows the third act of the play to show that we as humans sprint through life oblivious to what is actually happening around us. Wilder, throughout the play, tries to show our lives as something that we often take for granted.
“I was twelve, nearly thirteen, when I first saw a dead person” (1 King). The author, Stephen, King, is foreshadowing what is going to occur in the story, The Body. In The Body, Gordie, the main character, and his group of friends go on a quest to find Ray Brower. Ray Brower is a young guy who was tragically killed by a train. The friends are able to find Ray’s body because Vern tells what he overheard in his brother’s conversation.
Along with conceits, the use of hyperbolic metaphors are essential to metaphysical poetry. Without the imagery of worms taking the mistress’s virginity, the audience would not feel as if something is being questioned. Metaphysical poetry prompts readers to question life and what it brings. In this case, the idea of the grave deals with the scarceness of time, and time is the conceit that coincides with the theme of carpe diem. The poem uses an abundance of metaphysical elements, conceits and hyperboles, making this poem undoubtedly
The two poems, “Death, be not proud” by John Donne and “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, discusses the concept of death in various forms of how it is presented, yet share the similarities of the inevitable of death itself. Donne presents death as an opposable force against those who face it as well to disagree against Death himself, as if he was a person. However, Shelley presents death through a lifeless statue, Ozymandias, and the perspectives of the travellers who come across it. Through these two pieces, the destruction is consistent despite their different perceptions of the event. Throughout the two poems, Donne and Shelley contrasts in how death is perceived as if it was an animate or inanimate object.
RESPECT Respect is a loss consideration. It is something that in fact, has gone astray, or more precisely, lacking in today’s society. Respect is defined as a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. First, I want to say that respect is something that usually starts at home. In addition, the home environment is the foundation for all of our personal, spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional growth and maturity.
Hearing the words “Exquisite Corpse” used to mean something very different for me, at a point a figurative corpse wasn’t really a thing. After coming across the artist of Exquisite Corpse, Watsky, I learned what an Exquisite Corpse is. For those as unfamiliar with the term as I was, an Exquisite Corpse is a song or story that was written by a lot of different people; one person starts it by writing a page or verse, and then its passed on to another writer who does the same. The result is a story crafted by the sum of all the writers’ parts. That’s how I see myself, as the sum of the parts of those who have been or are in my life.
