Many find reverence and respect for something through death. For some, respect is found for something once feared. In a passage from The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, a man cares for a wolf that has died. The prominent religious motif and the paradox contrasting beauty and terror create a sense of awe that is felt by the narrator as he cares for the wolf. Religion often enlightens one with newfound reverence and respect. While caring for the wolf, the man finds both reverence and respect through a few spiritual encounters. As he is walking with the wolf, the man hears coyotes calling from the hills “above him where their cries [seem] to have no origin other than the night itself.” This represents the heavens calling out to the wolf to enter its gates. Once the man stops to build a fire, he seems to hold a ritual for the wolf. His shelter steamed “in the firelight like a burning scrim standing in a wilderness where celebrants of some sacred …show more content…
While the man is thinking about the wolf and the impact it had on its surroundings, he knows that many people would be afraid of the it. Realizing that something can be both “terrible and of great beauty,” the man's sense of awe is heightened. While laying under the moonlight, the man thinks about the wolf both figuratively and literally running through the dew on the grass and how there would be a “rich matrix of creatures [that had] passed in the night before her.” Figuratively, this represents the wolf running into heaven. However, the man imagining the wolf literally running and the beauty of her free movements across the “grassy swale” creates a sense of awe that he has for the wolf. A wolf running towards someone would be terrifying, but a wolf running with freedom is magnificently beautiful. After imagining this, the man knows that even though wolves can be terrifying, “the world cannot lose” their sense of beauty and
In his poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, John Updike uses a flock of birds to show that man can be uplifted by observing nature. Updike’s conclusion is lead up to with the beauty of autumn and what a binding spell it has on the two men playing golf. In Updike’s conclusion and throughout the poem, he uses metaphors, similes, and diction to show how nature mesmerizes humans.
In Alistair McLeod’s collection of short stories the Lost Salt Gift of Blood; death seems to be a constant companion. Death is important and perhaps even symbolic in this collection of short stories. It is important because it has the power to affect people and relationships, invokes freedom and even predetermines ones future, through the death of animal’s people and the impending death of others.
As a way to end his last stanza, the speaker creates an image that surpasses his experiences. When the flock rises, the speaker identifies it as a lady’s gray silk scarf, which the woman has at first chosen, then rejected. As the woman carelessly tosses the scarf toward the chair the casual billow fades from view, like the birds. The last image connects nature with a last object in the poet's
The deep complexity of its message is furthered by Olds’ use of metaphor. In describing the unburied corpses strewn about the cemetery, she notes a “hand reaching out / with no sign of peace, wanting to come back.” Through indirect metaphor, she is able to not only bring emotion to the stiffness of a frozen hand, but ponder a greater question—whether the “eternal rest” of death is peace at all. Despite the war, despite “the bread made of glue and sawdust,” and despite “the icy winter and the siege,” those passed still long for life. Human cruelty and the horrors of existence permeate even the sanctity of death. In war, nothing is
Death is an intriguing thing. From time immemorial we have feared it, used it, pondered it. Frequently, stories allow the reader into the minds of those immediatly surrounding the one who will die; but all of us "will die." Our morbid interest is in dying, the going, that threshold between death and life. What happens there? There are similiarities and differences in how death appears to the protagonist, written by Ambrose Bierce in An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge, and Ernest Hemingway in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Bierce offers An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge to show the incredible fantasy that passes through the mind of a man as he dies. Hemingway's engrossing description lies in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Here, on the African savannah, a man encounters death slowly and with excruciating lucidness. While the differences between the two stories are easy to enumerate, it is the simliarities that may offer the most insight into the minds of the authors and, perhaps, into the minds of us all. The setting for An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge is northern Alabama during the Civil War. Peyton Farquhar (Peyton) is said to be a planter who is left behind by the Confederate Army due to circumstances "...of an imperious nature," but he longs for the "release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction." Immaturity seems the watchword for him; the eagerness with which he swallows the bait presented by a Union spy may give a glimpse of the lack of gravity in Peyton's character that leads to his capture and to the fantastic attempt at escape or denial that his mind fabricates just before his death. Peyton is not a realist. Harry is a realist. The protagonist in The Snows of Kilimanjaro faces his pending doom with distinct clarity and resignation. In fact, his insistance greatly distrubs his wife (naturally) who tries to cheer him up by telling him that help is only a day away, and all that is needed to make it is a positive attitude. Harry is positive. He is certain that he will die very soon. He knows the mistake that has sealed his fate. Although he would change the past if he could, he does not seem to lament his end except for the writing he will never do.
Analogies and metaphors are used to compare things in order to help simplify a claim or make it more memorable. McCarthy uses a metaphor when stating, “Ours could have been the honor of being a beacon in the desert of destruction, a shining, living proof that civilization was not yet ready to destroy itself” (para 7). He discusses what the United States could have been at war’s end if this country was not “losing on every front.” In this metaphor he compares the U.S. to a beacon pointing out the horrifying results of Communism as it sits around the World that is Crumbling from World War II. By comparing the country to a beacon in “a desert of destruction,” McCarthy compares the United States to humanity’s last hope at civilization. By using
"But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse, only Suttree didn't say so" (372).
...pproaching footsteps of him? The novel revolves around the premise of Death's contemplation of the worth of humanity and his inability to reconcile the remarkable cruelty and compassion humans are simultaneously capable of. This fact, this paradoxical, beautiful scenario, follows him always.
Death is an inevitable part at the end of human life, despite how many people try to avoid it. Sometimes death is seen as a sacrifice, as noticed in “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst. However, not all sacrifices are deaths, as seen in “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. In both stories, upon analysis and comparison, one can see the similarities and differences involving the theme of sacrifice. When the two stories are put side by side, one will see that Connell and Hurst both use death in a way that displays character development. This is shown when Brother of “The Scarlet Ibis” becomes regretful and Rainsford of “The Most Dangerous Game” becomes what he once hated, the reader will also realize how the characters’ personality traits
Grief, revenge, and unsurpassed sorrow. Few authors can replicate these feelings as well as Edgar Allan Poe. “The Raven”, “Lenore”, and “Annabel Lee” all refer to an instance where the narrator is grieving over a lost loved one.
In an excerpt from The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, McCarthy uses gruesome and dying diction to argue the enlightening impact that the death has on the narrator, in order to portray that nature is beautiful, yet harsh. The narrator reached the first talus, and it is made clear that he is in touch with nature. He cradles and tends for the wounded wolf, while he brings the horse to a creek so it may get water. The author uses the word blood repeatedly while setting the initial image, showing the reader that there is still life among them, but blood has been drawn. McCarty does this to show the reader that at this point, death is not prevalent. Soon after reaching a stopping point, the boy sets up a fire and puts the wolf down to rest, while
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
In Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Crossing, McCarthy uses techniques to convey the impact of the experience on the main character. McCarthy uses imagery, tone, and figurative language often to help the readers actually get into the story and helps them become part of it. McCarthy uses those techniques to get readers more involved in the story like they were in it themselves. As I read the story I imagine being in the man’s place and couldn't imagine doing what he did.
Le Guin illustrates another aspect of this theme. In the beginning of the story it starts all happy, but as time goes on it gets a little darker. The author decided to use some interesting syntax in the beginning also by adding a bunch of short incomplete sentences that add to the suspense of what “ she did not believe”, and that “ she did not understand”. At the end of the story she finds out “ I saw him, I had to see him, my own dear love, turned into the hateful one.” At this point she is freaked out of what just happened to her husband, the “good husband”, and the “ good father”, all of the sudden he just changed. And with a “ Grief howl and a terror howl and a calling howl” all of the other wolves knew what was going on. And with the fear that he might kill her and her family she had her husband killed. And all because of not knowing what he might do it ended up in a very bad day for the whole
The time period this work takes place in is a very gloomy and frightening time. He wakes up in a dark place by himself and in fear, which makes things worse. A common theme we can relate this dark place to is when we fall off of the path of God. Since God represents all things good, the dark is the exact opposite. Since everything is not so clear in the wood he his describing, the path back to God is even more difficult to attain.