The Agony Of Dying Lewis Thomas Analysis

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Lewis Thomas reaches out to all victims in death’s reach to assuage their fear of dying. Thomas wants his readers to understand that they cannot escape death; it is an “indispensible part of living.”
Instead of just throwing the topic of death into his reader’s faces, he tries to slowly ease them into it. Starting with the death of a tree, it is something so miniscule and less emotional. It allows Lewis to bring up the topic of death without bringing up so many emotions. Then to head deeper into the conversation he talks about the death of a small animal, a mouse. By bringing up the idea of something that is living and breathing it opens the reader’s heart to let more emotions flow. Lewis’s final barrier is broken when he starts discussing …show more content…

I closed my eyes in order, it seemed to me, to help push it out, and took pleasure in growing languid and letting myself go. It was an idea that was only floating on the surface of my soul, as delicate and feeble as all the rest, but in truth not only free from distress but mingled with that sweet feeling that people have who have let themselves slide into sleep. I believe that this is the same state in which people find themselves whom we see fainting in the agony of death, I find that there is nothing like coming close to it.” “If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself; Nature will in a moment fully and sufficiently instruct you; she will exactly do that business for you; take you no care for it.”
By involving this real life story it gives the readers something to hold onto. They can take from the story and know that it happens to everybody but for most it is easy and painless.
Knowing that some people in this world wouldn’t take him or the story seriously, he appeals to his audience’s logic. In paragraph 6, he uses all types of medical terms to explain what happens when death occurs. Lewis establishes his medical authority so the reader will believe him when he explains that death is virtually painless. He wants the reader to be able to investigate death without having to feel or experience the fear of

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