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The theme of death is deeply and affectively demonstrated through Hurst’s powerful diction. Hurst first employs this personification to foreshadow Doodle’s death when he artfully dictates, “The last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton fields and through every room of our house, speaking softly the names of our dead” (pg. 315). The personification of the “graveyard flowers” as an intelligent portal linking the dead and alive strongly foreshadows the death of Doodle. Death is pictured floating around the house, infecting the main gathering place of the family. The reader is given the idea that the narrator has his mind constantly on the dearly departed Doodle. Hurst continues on to speak of the childhood memories, and how these still today remind the narrator of Doodle’s death. “A grindstone stands where the bleeding trees stood, just outside the kitchen door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a silvery dust. The “song that dies up in the elm” signifies that even long after Doodle’s death, the slightest thing brings back memories of Doodle. The mere chirps of a bird carry the words of Doodle’s disappearance. By comparing how life was with Doodle years ago, and the now aged yet familiar setting, Hurst is able to give the reader a feeling that time has been moving on, but not for the narrator. The death therefore haunts the narrator. Hurst’s diction is very strong in foreshadowing, personifying, and demonstrating the theme of death.
The theme of merciless sadness is enforced and employed throughout the story by Hurst’s diction. After being stunned by the Paris Green, Hurst embeds a sense of burden and pity in Doodle: “Doodle was paralyzed, so I put him on my shoulder and carried him down the ladder, and even when we were outside the bright sunshine, he clung to me crying, ‘Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me’” (318). After reading about Doodle, it is clear that the narrator has a...