Literature Comparison Paper – Faulkner vs. Poe The literary theme I chose for this paper is death. In this class, this particular theme stood out to me because the use of death usually corresponds with sadness and despair. It is a topic that is rarely used in conjunction with love, especially love of the dead, which in this case, is necrophilia. Using two different literary forms, I will demonstrate how the authors develop this theme in their respective works. The first piece of literature I will discuss is a short story by William Faulkner, entitled A Rose for Emily.
They look upon a dead man. The man is pictured laying in bed with a “profound and fleshless grin.” (96) This description gives us a visual of a skeleton in the bed that has been decaying for some time now. He had been laid into a “sleep that outlasts love.” (96) The idea of Ms. Emily being capable of killing a person, especially a lover, is unimaginable. What makes this situation even more disturbing is that Ms. Emily had become so desensitized that she kept the body in her room to embrace and love it forever. Faulkner’s imagery creates this sickening idea of embracing a dead body.
“Not Waving but Drowning”, by Stevie Smith and “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”, by Randall Jarrell are two poems that deal heavily with death and its’ apathy. Both poems handle and view death in two completely different ways. When I first read “Not Waving but Drowning,” I thought that the author was writing of a man drowning in cold deep water faraway from shore with his friends waving back thinking he is ok. But when I read the poem more closely and figuratively the poems meaning totally changed. Thinking about the poem literally is reading the obvious, a man drowning in water.
What was Macbeth’s reaction when he returned from Duncan’s chamber? What did he say? Macbeth was disturb and feeling guilty about the murder. Saying “it was a sorry sight.” He also stated that even after the murder he still heard voices. Saying “Macbeth has murdered sleep, and therefore Macbeth will sleep no more” (59).
What more can I do because I killed Paris? Oh my god Juliet, why are you so perfect? Your passed out body feels romantic. But the police officers keep us here stranded and they surround us in the hotel? * Feels awkward, staying here with all of you that is sleeping around the Capulet’s hotel.
He can give me what you cannot" - pg 58. As the novel continues the reader becomes more aware that the father is dying, this is evident in the following quote. "In the night he woke in the cold dark coughing and he coughed till his chest was raw.... He knelt there wheezing softly, his hands on his knees. I am going to die, he said.
3.05 Fascination with Fear Part A The theme I developed from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial” is Man must ignore the darker possibilities in life in order to survive. Examples from the text include the narrators experience he told about in the story. He awoke to the smell of dirt, nothing but darkness, the feeling of wood all around him, and silence of a sea that overwhelms. Since he cannot open the coffin he thinks he is in, he realizes that he must have fallen under an attack catalepsy in the presence of people who knew not of his condition. He screams, then to be shaken by four people, making him realize he is really in the tiny sleeping berths of a ship.
The narrator also repeats the line, “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.” This, along with the reference to God, Satan, and Seraphim, mean that getting “into bed” with the man the narrator was speaking to was a sin, and therefore they never married. When the narrator tries to sleep, “All the world drops dead,” which could represent nightmares and visions of hell because she feels guilty for her sin. Plath uses repetition to emphasize certain phrases so the reader can decipher the true meaning. Another device the author uses is personification. In the second stanza the narrator describes “the stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in.” Clearly, stars can not waltz and blackness can’t gallop.
Also by referring to line five the “pictures” of death, is implied that sleep is just a short resemblance of death, making death seem effortless and comprehensible, removing the fear of the unknown. In the first section, John Donne personifies death. Donne compares death to sleep; since sleep is more pleasurable then death must be good. The best men willingly go to death and they rest their bones and their soul goes to heaven. He addresses death as an equal or inferior.
Monica Gaber English 102 Poetry Analyst “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden W.H.Auden’s focuses on death as an irreversible phenomenon though people die, this analysis of "Funeral Blues" that the relationships with those loved one don't. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is an elegy, a poem of mourning, in this case for a recently deceased friend. Its title has multiple meanings. It alludes perhaps to the music played at New Orleans funerals, it reflects the “blues” that the speaker himself is experiencing over this sudden and painful loss, and it references the poem itself, the expression of sadness through words, meter and rhyme.