Death_and_Impermanence

Death can be as silent as a feather on the wind, or as loud as a volcano heard around the world. It can make you take notice or it can as unnoticed as an ant walking across the grass. Death does not judge or prioritize you go first and in a better way because you are rich and powerful. Death does not ask you if you are ready, but death is something that we all must face at one time or another. You cannot run or hide from it, and it is final. Death may be the biggest mystery of life that everyone at one time or another wonder what it is all about, but that no one really has an answer for. I think that authors who write about death such as Emily Dickerson and Jean Rhys want to take some of the fear away from death. (Clugston 2010) One main element of death is the adventure of dying. Many people stop to think, or just think of death in passing as, what will death be like', They want to know what will death smell like, taste like fell like, and so on. I think that Emily Dickson focuses on what she thinks that she will see in her journey to the afterlife. Emily Dickson’s poem “Because I could not wait for Death” is evident that death is the theme to the poem. In the title of the poem, she is already showing the importance of death, by capitalizing the D in death. (Clugston 2010) The title may also hint that she may be taking us through what she thinks her journey with death may be like. She also lets the reader see that she herself may think of death as a person, one who is kind, “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me -” (1863, p. 810). . She writes “We slowly drove –he knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility” (1863 p. 810). When Emily Dickinson writes, “We slowly drove – he knew no haste” she is stating that she is dying slowly and death could be a kind visitor to take her on her journey along with “immortality” (1863, p. 810). Most people would shutter at thinking death is a friend, but think of an elderly person, or someone who has fought a battle with cancer, towards the end, death becomes a friend that waits on them to finish their life. Allen Tate states, “The content of death in the poem eludes explicit definition. He is a gentleman taking a lady out for a drive.” (DiYanni, 2007, p.951). In the third part of the poem, she writes that they have passed a school where children play at recess, and a field of grain, also the setting sun, this could be her passing her childhood, and the grain is her life’s journey, and that the setting sun is the end of her life. In the fifth stanza Emily Dickinson shows how comfortable see is with death calling her plot a “home” where she will be eternity. She writes, “We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible - The Cornice – in the Ground (Clugston 2010) She goes on to show how comfortable with death she is when she states, “Since then, ‘tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day” (Clugston 2010)I believe the theme of the poem is that death should not be feared. Since Emily Dickinson was religious I believe she felt like she had nothing to fear about the journey to death. (Clugston 2010) The next short story, “I use to live here once” by Jean Rhys, symbolizes the way that she leads the reader on a journey with a surprise ending that makes the story come together. The first part of the story talks about stepping stones that are across the river. I would say that these stones talk about a journey of a person’s life. The flat stones may be childhood, safe and care free, while the jagged stones are the hard part of our lives, when we are in a crisis. The glass or smooth stones are the way that the dead may see a bright blue sky, or what we see as peace in the end. The saying of the grass that is now yellow may make one think of the end of a life cycle. . Rhys takes a common scene, and incorporates the symbolism into the overall theme of mortality and immortality indicating all living things must eventually wither and die. (Clugston 2010) Told from a third person limited omniscient point of view, the narrator describes the thoughts and feelings of the main character as the story progresses. “She walked along feeling extraordinarily happy” and “her heart began to beat” shows that the narrator has insight to the woman’s feelings. Toward the end of the story, the theme of mortality and immortality becomes a bit clearer. Given the surprise ending, “this was the first time she knew”, the main character has finally realized that she is dead, and quite possibly a ghost based on the children’s reaction to her. They could not see her, they only felt cold. Showing the main character as a ghost, although we don’t see this until the end, seems to suggest the author believes in an afterlife of some sort. The overall tone of the story is light and happily retrospective with the tinges of death lurking just outside of view until the very end (Clugston, 2010). Both writers have made short stories of death as kind and peaceful. Maybe that is because they want to think of death as calm and peaceful. The journey to death is only one small part of dying that writer’s love to write about. This may be, because no one really knows what happens in the end, so to take death and scare a reader, or to make death a friend we all need, is just part of life really. When looking at both of these stories, that there was more to contrast with the poem and the story then at first glance. Because of the character in “Because I could not stop death”, did not think she was dead, but that the carriage would just drive her around forever, but in the end was taking her to the afterlife. . In I Used to Live Here Once, Rhys starts the story with the main character standing by the river looking at the stepping stones, and that the character remembers each one of them. She recalled everything along the journey and compared to when she used to live there, for example the road. It was wider… but the work on it had been done carelessly. It looked trampled to her. Toward the end of the story, the children playing outside realized it had gotten cold all of a sudden, this was directly after the woman neared them reaching for them. “Her arms fell to her sides as she watched them running across the grass to the house. That was the first time she knew.” So, the woman in the poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death and the story I Used to Live Here Once, were both dead, and would not accept it because they had not realized it yet. (Clugston, 2010). All in all, both the poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death and the short story I Used to Live Here Once were both very well written, easy to read pieces of literature dealing with a character that had passed on and had not realized or accepted it. In the poem she realized it when the horses headed for eternity and the short story when the children (unknowingly) ran from her because the temperature had gotten noticeably colder. It took both characters a considerable amount of time to realize it, and move on. The literature pieces were written with years separating them, and written by two totally different authors, but have an uncanny resemblance in plot and theme. (Clugston, 2010). As with other great works, this one has its share of symbolism. In the second stanza, “because their words had forked no lightning” (as cited in Clugston, 2010), brings out the essence of the poem by allowing us to understand that all types of “men” get to the end of their lives without feeling they have made much of an impact on the world or done as much as they thought they were capable of achieving. As with the other two pieces mentioned here, Thomas also uses the sun as a symbol. In the fourth stanza, ‘Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight” (as cited in Clugston, 2010), depicts the sun as everything good and wanted in life. The most important symbol comes in the first line of the last stanza where Thomas writes, “And you, my father, there on the sad height” (as cited in Clugston, 2010). “It is often suggested that ‘the sad height’ is a bier”, or a stand for a coffin, but I tend to agree with Jonathan Westphal, who writes “The sequence suggest that the sad height is not a place at all, bier or mountain, but a time, a metaphorical plateau of aloneness and loneliness before death (‘near death’). It is not the end of life, the moment of death, or a time beyond it, but the ending of life (‘at their end’), a phenomenologically distinct period (‘at close of day’) before death when it is seen, at last (‘the last wave by’), to be inevitable (‘too late’).” In other words, the sad height is that moment in time when a person has realized that death is forthcoming and inevitable (Westphal, 1994). While all three pieces analyzed above rely heavily on symbolism and tone to convey an overall theme, it is ultimately up to the reader to draw a conclusion about what the author’s personal views are and the meaning they are trying to convey. I Used to Live Here Once and Because I Could Not Stop for Death contain symbols that depict life and the afterlife while maintaining a tone of acceptance and peace. In contrast, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night carries a tone of angst and anger with symbolism that coincides with a bitter fight to the end. Whether or not the meanings we derive from these examples is the true intent of the authors is partially irrelevant as the overall experience of reading, comparing and contrasting these pieces leads to a greater appreciation of the written word and a desire to sample more works that deal directly or indirectly with a common theme. As one learns to see deeper into any given piece, and consequently the authors themselves, it is inevitable that knowledge is gained, the desire to learn and experience more is fueled, and a whole new world is opened up to be explored, studied, and enjoyed.