The Theme of Death in American Literature When people reach the end of their lifetime whether young, old, or middle aged, are forced to face the concept of death. That is not fully the case in literature, for the somber of death occurs more often than the celebration of life. Even though readers do not know the characters personally, they still have an emotional connection. The whole concept of death could be used as a symbol, theme. For some authors death in certain cases can reflect on either a loved one or someone they knew. When reading novels or short stories, death is used as a common theme that makes an appearance. Death is pretty common in stories, and normally writers will use death as an ending to make the story more emotional at the end. The short story The Lottery was pretty much made for the theme about death due to a character’s reward of winning the lottery. In this story the theme of death occurs at the end, because the reader does not know that the so called …show more content…
In this story the theme of death also appears near the conclusion when the man lies down in the snow and falls into a deep sleep (London 509). There were many events that lead up to the man dying at the end of this story (London). For starters half way through this story the man falls through the ice and ends up getting frostbite, because his toes got cold, and he was walking in negative degree temperatures (London 502). The man also accidentally lit a fire under a low hanging branch, topped with snow, and as the branch got hotter the snow, kept melting and consequently put out his fire and his only sure chance of survival in the Yukon (London 506). Death is a theme of this story because the man could have easily saved his own life, if he would have listened to the old man that London purposely added into the story to show that he could have saved his own