Sea Burial
The sea was calm, quiet and dark. A full moon hung low on the horizon as it had for the last six nights. Rose heard the laments, she had sailed the oceans around Toxus long enough to know that seas like this signifies misfortune. She stood on the BlackPearl’s foredeck, adjusted her spyglass on the far sides of the ocean, searching for anything she could use to identify their location. “Nothing but sea,” she said to the night. “No signs of land and no stars I could use to recognize our place. No wind for us to sail. We have rowed for days, land never comes no matter which way we turn.”
She rubbed the heels of her palms against her face. Thirsty, hungry, her stomach started growling for food and water. The constant darkness had made it hard to accurately measure the time. The BlakcPearl isn’t even her ship. She’d been the first mate until a
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“I am Arthous, and I bring you the best blessing.”
“Keep your blessing,” said Rose, pulling the trigger, her pistol fired and spark exploded from the barrel. The shot pierced the monstrous wraith, but passed through it without affecting harm.
“Mortals..,” said Arthous, shaking his helmeted head. “You always feared what you do not know and would reject from a gift that is freely offered.”
The monstrous Arthous came closer, and the dark aura of his staff covered the ship’s deck in mist. Rose raced away from the wraith as her crew fell before the mist, their souls coming out like steam from their bodies. Then her heel caught one of the laid out hammocks and tripped, falling backwards onto her barrels of rum. She pushed herself away from Arthous.
Her mates were all moving, struggling like fresh-caught fish gasping for air. Mist rose from rough stitches the ship’s sailmaker had used to sew. Faces moved in the mist, faces she had sailed with for years, men and women she had fought beside with in all times. The wraith stood over her and her dead mate souls erected beside
“I had been born into a raging ocean where I swam relentlessly, flailing my arms in hope of rescue, of reaching a shoreline I never sighted. Never solid ground beneath me, never a resting place. I had lived with only the desperate hope to stay afloat; that and nothing more. But when at last I wrote my first words in the page, I felt an island rising beneath my feet like the back of a whale”.
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned in the water. The poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were lovesick with them...
A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.
The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
“My Son the Marine?” was written by John and Frank Schaeffer in 2002. This story was written in the 1st person. It focuses on the struggle a father is having about his son joining the military. “Separating” was written by John Updike in 1972 and is written in the 3rd person. It is about a family going through a divorce and focuses on the emotional toll towards the children during the separation. “Those Winter Sundays” was written in 1966 by Robert Hayden. Written in the 1st person, the focus of this poem is to show the regret of a young boy who never showed the appreciation that his father deserved. All of these stories appeal to “The things They Carry” because of the emotional aspect. In all these stories there are signs of guilt, confusion, and regret.
Fear is an amazing emotion, in that it has both psychological as well as physiological effects on the human body. In instances of extreme fear, the mind is able to function in a way that is detached and connected to the event simultaneously. In “Feared Drowned,” Sharon Olds presents, in six brief stanzas, this type of instance. Her sparse use of language, rich with metaphors, similes and dark imagery, belies the horror experienced by the speaker. She closes the poem with a philosophical statement about life and the after-effects that these moments of horror can have on our lives and relationships.
The sea, this "water of the Gulf," is the deepest, most mysterious place Edna has ever explored. Until now, Edna had lived her life on the "white beach," a perfectly virginal island of blind men leading even more blind women. But Edna dips her toes into the dark waters and now she wishes to leave the island and swim out to a better place; or soar overhe...
The lexis used in epitaphs varies in different religions. Phrases or whole sentences are quoted in gravestones. It is seen in a Muslim gravestone (figure 1.95) carved on “inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un (إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ). This is a verse from the Qur’an which translates to ‘Surely we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return’ in English. This extract from the Holy Book is in prayer form, an idiom, and conventions for prayers. Also, on Jewish gravestones the phrase “Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One” is carved on many which is one of the greatest commandments from the Deuteronomy 6:4. Jewish gravestones with Hebrew engravings have an increased value to genealogists, in that they not just show the date of the deceased’ passing and the time, the age or date of conception, however they also incorporate the name of the perished's father. This allows us to go back one more generation.
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
The Theme of Loss in Poetry Provide a sample of poetry from a range of authors, each of whom portrays a different character. the theme of loss in some way. Anthology Introduction The object of this collection is to provide a sample of poetry from a range of authors, each of whom portray the theme of ‘loss’ in some way. The ‘Loss’ has been a recurring theme in literature for centuries, from.
In this poem, the author tells of a lost love. In order to convey his overwhelming feelings, Heaney tries to describe his emotions through something familiar to everyone. He uses the sea as a metaphor for love, and is able to carry this metaphor throughout the poem. The metaphor is constructed of both obvious and connotative diction, which connect the sea and the emotions of love.
Stevie Smith’s poem Not Waving But Drowning, brings to light numerous parallels in the book and the play and it is alluded to several times. The play and the poem draw similar situation but towards the end leads into different endings. In the poem the man dies, this man we can associate with Sophie but in the book, we see that Sofie rescued, rescued by the man who was much farther out than her. This alludes to how in real life there are people who might be in more of a dire need, who are you can almost say “Much further out than you [think]”. Not Waving But Drowning embodies Bradie and Sofie’s situation, how Sofie struggles and Bradie struggle with depression, and how they connect and seek out each other’s help. Help they cannot give because
A shrill cry echoed in the mist. I ducked, looking for a sign of movement. The heavy fog and cold storm provided nothing but a blanket, smothering all sight and creating a humid atmosphere. The freezing air continued to whip at my face, relentless and powerful. Our boat, stuck in the boggy water. Again a cry called. Somewhere out there was someone, or something.
The Theme of Death in Poetry Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are two Modern American Poets who consistently wrote about the theme of death. While there are some comparisons between the two poets, when it comes to death as a theme, their writing styles were quite different. Robert Frost’s poem, “Home Burial,” and Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain,” and “I died for Beauty,” are three poems concerning death. While the theme is constant there are differences as well as similarities between the poets and their poems. The obvious comparison between the three poems is the theme of death.
Katherine Philip’s “Epitaph,” written in a couplet form, is memorializing her firstborn son who only lived less than six weeks after he was born. In this poem Katherine Philips is desperately trying to renew her faith in life, but she is struggling to do so because of the death of her son. She is attempting to justify the loss of her child, but is also questioning whether there is even a reason for hope. “What on earth deserves our trust?” If you cant trust anything then you have to rely on faith. Even things that we know as certain, like the sun rising in the morning, Katherine seems to not trust, “And so the Sun if it arise…” The “if” implies such a strong sense of doubt that it clearly emphasizes Philip’s struggling attempt to renew her faith in life.