The Most Beautiful Time of Life in Alice Dark's The Gloaming

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Recommended: death explanation in poetry

Being hurt emotionally by death is by far the worst kind of pain in the world. It causes one to completely shy away from doing what is right. Alice Dark’s In the Gloaming, illustrates selfishness in one character, and righteousness in another. Although this story is written in third person, it is out of Janet’s perspective. Janet plays the role of the protagonist character. She spends all of her time taking care of Laird and making him happy. Dark gives her readers many symbols and metaphors throughout her story to explain her theme. She tells a story about a family that is being pulled apart by their brothers and sons homosexuality as well as his death from AIDS. According to David Caron, “The family is an institution, and like all institutions its primary purpose is its own maintenance. AIDS, on the other hand, is the inassimilable difference that intrudes on the family.” AIDS intrudes on this family and breaks it apart, leaving Laird with only his mother left to comfort him.

Laird’s first words were “The gloaming,” these very words symbolize his life and what is happening to...

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