Losing someone or something you cherish is never easy. When love is uncovered through the pain, the loss sometimes seems greater. Once someone values someone or something, their love cannot be fully comprehended until the object of their appreciation is gone. Only then can the realization of how much it is treasured set in. Many books have been written about this topic, but three short stories in particular skillfully illustrate the concept of loss. In “Gwilan’s Harp” by Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Washwoman” by Issac Singer, and “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry critical characters face great loss in their lives. Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story, “Gwilan’s Harp” is a tale centered around identity. Gwilan, owner of a beautiful harp, thrives as …show more content…
The touching story is about the devotion of an elderly washwoman. The washwoman lost her son when he disowned her, but she is not furious; instead, she loves him anyway. During one bitter winter, the washwoman becomes gravely ill after picking up a couple families’ laundry. Assuming she died, all her customers mourned her sudden disappearance as they had become attached to her over the years. The washwoman’s doctor and son thought she would die, but she felt compelled to give the families their wash back before she let her illness consume her. She knew that “the wash would not let me die” (Singer) and therefore made a miraculous recovery to finish the laundry. Unfortunately, delivering the wash ended up being her last job, for after she delivered the laundry, she let go of the desire to live and never returned to her …show more content…
Johnsy, a young blooming artist, tragically contracts Pneumonia. Because she has lost so much hope in her recovery, she believes that when the last leaf falls off the vine outside her window, she too will “turn loose my hold on everything and go sailing down…like one of those poor, tired leaves.” (O. Henry). An old grouchy painter named Behrman resolves to help her by painting a leaf on the vine when the last leaf falls. However, his plan comes with a price, and after painting the leaf on a cold, windy night, he develops Pneumonia and perishes. Due to his sacrifice, Johnsy is saved, but she lost a dear friend in the
“Pass On” written by Michael Lee is a free verse poem informing readers on grief, which is one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome not only when losing a loved one, but also in life itself. “Pass On” successfully developed this topic through the setting of an unknown character who explains his or her experience of grief. Despite Lee never introducing this character, readers are given enough information to know how they are overcoming this difficult obstacle. In fact, this unknown character is most likely the writer himself, indirectly explaining his moments of grief. One important piece of information Lee provides is the fact that he has experienced loss twice, one with his grandfather and the other a friend who was murdered by the
The harp had come to Gwilan from her mother, and so had her mastery of it, people said. “Ah,” they said when Gwilan played, “you can tell, that’s Diera’s touch,” just as their parents had said when Diera played, “Ah, that’s the true Penlin touch!” Gwilan’s mother had had the harp from Penlin, a musician’s dying gift to the worthiest of pupils. From a musician’s hands Penlin too had received it; never had it been sold or bartered for, nor any value put upon it that can be said in numbers. A princely and most incredible instrument it was for a poor harper to own. The shape of it was perfection, and every part was strong and fine: the wood as hard and smooth as bronze, the fittings of ivory and silver. The
Unlike the rest who were sickly and weak, she pushed through and completed the laundry over a two-week period. She knew the townspeople were counting on her and that might have just been her mentality. As said in paragraph sixteen, she took pride in her love of labor,“The old woman did not want to become a burden, and so she bore her burden.” So when “The Washwoman” had not returned the laundry after more than four weeks, compared to the usual two or three, it was a catastrophe (Paragraph 19). They could not do much to get what they needed back either, no one knew where she lived so they mourned not only for the loss of their clothes but for the old woman who had most likely collapsed (Paragraph 19). So her return truly shocked the family. In paragraph twenty-one it is revealed she had been very ill, so ill that a doctor and priest had to see her. Her son who was rich and had never given her money before possibly from him being ashamed, even contributed to a coffin (Paragraph 17 and 21). “The wash would not let me die,” she said in paragraph twenty-two, it was her feeling of responsibility that somewhat kept her alive. In her time though, the townspeople were never let down; further what the epitome of a responsible person is
Kenyon’s criticism of burial and the mourning process and the manner in which it fails to provide a sense of closure for those who have lost a loved one is the main underlying theme in The Blue Bowl. Through her vivid description of both the natural setting and the grief-stricken emotional overtone surrounding the burial of a family’s house pet and the events that follow in the time after the cat is put to rest, Kenyon is able to invoke an emotional response from the reader that mirrors that of the poem’s actual characters. Her careful use of diction and the poem’s presentation through a first-person perspective, enables Kenyon to place the reader in the context of the poem, thus making the reader a participant rather than a mere observer. By combining these two literary techniques, Kenyon present a compelling argument with evidence supporting her critique of burial and the mourning process.
Subject- "Sorting Laundry" is about a wife reminiscing about the times that she has had with her husband while she is folding and sorting their laundry.
Henry, a young painter Johnsy, becomes ill with pneumonia. While lying in bed dreadfully ill, Johnsy spots an ivory vine and she begins to count down the leaves outside her window. When the last one falls, she believed she will fall too. Her good friend Sue, tries effortlessly to dissuade Johnsy’s crazy idea. Sue then seeks outside help, she goes to their neighbor Behrman ignoring his age and stubbornness. “He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it” (Henry). Behrman then created his masterpiece as he painted the last leaf in the cold and harsh icy rain. He soon becomes ill with pneumonia and dies but his death saved Johnsy and he demonstrated true caring, and a sacrificial
In the story “Gwilan’s Harp” by Ursula K. LeGuin there is lots of loss. This story starts off great and happy. By the midpoint Gwilan has gotten into an accident and broken her wrist. She loses her ability to play the one thing in life she adores, the harp. She ends up marrying Torm, the driver in the accident, because of their mutual love of music. She faces another heart break when both of her boys want nothing to do with music. At the end of this sad short story Gwilan’s husband of thirty years dies leaving her alone. “The thirty years began in pain; they passed in peace, contentment. But they did not end there. They ended where they began” (LeGuin). The ending of Gwilan’s life was
Sweet Susan, her roommate, worries that Johnsy will never make a full recovery from the deadly disease. “Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman”(O. Henry). While Johnsy lies in her hospital bed, she counts down the leaves on the ivy tree outside of her window, declaring that when the last one fell, she will draw her last breath. A fellow hospital patient, Mr. Behrman who also has contracted pneumonia, faces the bitter cold in hopes of restoring life to Johnsy. He paints a single ivy leaf on a canvas so that Johnsy will not lose her young life in that hospital bed. Sadly, amidst the process of determining Johnsy will not give up hope, he gets too cold in the winter air and dies a couple hours later. The type of loss is definitely physical loss with Mr. Behrman’s death, but in the end, there is the hope of life personified after a heroic feat of a
dealt with and the individual moves on. Susan Philips and Lisa Carver explored this grieving
In “The story of an Hour,” Louise Mallard learns from Josephine and Richards that her husband, Brently, has died. She confines herself to the upstairs room. While Josephine and Richards believes that she is upstairs grieving, Louise is actually rather happy that she is finally free from being contained by her husband. Louise looks out the window at a big and beautiful world. She has a completely new view of the world now. The adventitious death of her husband allows her to start thinking about making decisions for herself and seeing things without his opinion. Much like Louise’s situation, the husband constantly contains the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” to one room. She is enclosed in a large, yellow room because her husband says she is sick. The narrator is physically in need of human interaction. His keeping her inside this room is leading her to become more ill than she already is. Both of these women have been living with completely despondent spirits. As depicted in these two stories, Dorothy Hartman stat...
It is about a young married woman, Louise Mallard, who has a heart condition and a shock can kill her immediately. Her sister, Josephine, was careful not to upset Louise when her husband, Brently Mallard, died in a train accident. Louise cried and went to her room. However, Louise felt happy, even though the situation was tragic. In addition, she realized that she gained freedom from a depressing marriage and from her dominating husband.
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
Without fail, she plodded to her home with an oversize load of clothes and returned exactly two weeks later. One winter when the wind and ice were especially cold, the washwoman struggled mightily to take the load home. She however, managed to make it home. The family waited almost two months before the eighty-year-old woman collapsed in the house with their load of clothes. She rested a bit, then headed home promising to come soon for the new load. She never returned. “The wash she had returned was her last effort on this earth. She had been driven by an indomitable will to return the property to their rightful owner, to fulfill the task she had undertaken.” Not only did the washwoman sacrifice her life for the family, but she laid a meaningful impression on the narrator. The wash was such an insignificant part of their lives, yet she sacrificed her life for it. Sometimes people make the biggest sacrifices for the smallest
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
Losing a loved one is one of the hardest experiences every person must go through. The experience does not end with the loss though, but begins with it. The loss of a dear person leads those left behind into a downward spiral of emotions and memories. A poem entitled “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth focuses on that loss and the emotions that follow it. By reading the poem one can objectively experience both the grief that Lucy Gray’s death brings on but also her parents’ acceptance of her death.