The poem takes place at the funeral of a young champion runner who is loved and admired by those in his town. Most people would consider dying young to be a tragic fate. However, the poem expresses how it is much better to die in the glory of youth than to rest too long on one's laurels, only to see your laurels fade away. "From fields where glory does not stay / And early though the laurel grows / It withers quicker than the rose." (Housman 10-12).
The athlete is again being held, "shoulder-high" but not in a positive, cheerful way this time. After the sudden turn from images of happy, celebrated life in the first stanza to one of death in the second Houseman starts his third stanza with an argument. In this argument, Houseman communicates a widely traditional idea about growing older; any glory or fame associated with something physical like athleticism fades with age. Making the runner in "To an Athlete Dying Young" lucky because he will not have to experience
She went all over the world and learned new things and came up with the concept of “the pill” (Ellen Carol DuBois, 2009). The world without the knowledge that Margaret Sanger has shared with so many women just seems ludicrous. She helped many migrant wives when they thought they had no choice. Our lives as women would be drastically effected if she had never stood up for what she believed in and never stopped fighting. Women wouldn’t be able to have the careers have worked so hard for because they would constantly have a baby on her hip.
Johnny has both positive and negative prideful traits that affect him throughout his life. His pride played a large role in his accident, and benefited him and other people throughout the novel as well. Johnny’s accident was the effect of his pride. Johnny was too proud. He was constantly giving orders and wouldn't take advice from others because he thought he was too good and didn't need it.
After Creon’s family’s deaths, Creon’s pride crumbles as he realizes he was wrong in his actions. In addition, “And proud men in old age learn to be wise (Choragus, Exodus).” I believe this quote shows wisdom does not come with age, but with knowledge. Creon filled with pride, refused to listen to other’s opinions and did not become wise. Once his family died admitted his mistakes and then became capable of becoming wise. In conclusion Creon became conscious of his pride too late and then had to pay the price.
Peyton is aware he has moments left, yet surprised at the way he has trailed off from the current affair. He sees his family and knows they are out of harm’s way and content with this revelation. “As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.” (Bierce, 1995, p. 2). The events going on around him are clear but not brought to the forefront of his mind as he finds himself dying from the noose and fascinated by the realization that he has somehow survived and landed in a creek below his death.
However, the runner in “To an Athlete Dying Young” dies at a young age even though his fame does not: while in “Ex-Basketball Player” the ex- player’s fame washes away in his growing of age. There are many similarities in these two poems. In “To an Athlete Dying Young” and “Ex-Basketball Player”, the men were famous whenever they were young because of sports. In an excerpt of, “To an Athlete Dying Young,” it states, “The time you won your town the race/we chaired you through the market place. Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high” (Housman).
Allison A River Runs Through It In the movie "A River Runs Through It" the Blackfoot River played a copious role in the lives of Norman and Paul Maclean. It symbolized the excitement within the friendship of the two men. The river was their own special and isolated place where time could be spent, relaxed, and stress could be relieved. The river and fly fishing kept the bond between Norman and Paul pungent and concentrated in a brotherly, and also a friendly fashion. The Blackfoot River, located in rural Montana, meant everything two Norman and Paul, especially when they grew older.
Analysis of To an Athlete Dying Young The poem To an Athlete Dying young by A. E. Housman is a commentary about the glory that an athlete receives from doing well. Housman claims that glory is fleeting, and can only last so long, and the only way that an athlete can capture the greatness forever is by dying during the time of his greatness. Doing so, he can live forever in the sense that he is remembered by people for the achievements he made. Through the use of quatrains, rhyme patterns, and the use of words, Houseman exemplifies the meaning of his poem throughout. The structure of the poem is one of the main features that Housman uses to make his poem effective, in which he splits the poem into seven different stanzas.
Correspondingly in the Volunteer Asquith uses language to present the power and fulfilment of joining the war by saying that life before was ‘Half his life’’. This shows the distinct lack of fulfilment in the clerk’s life before going to war as it is as if war would complete his life and therefore if he were to die at war at least he would have lived a completely fulfilled life. Both The Volunteer and The dead use the structure of the poem to show how the war changes men’s lives for the better. The Volunteer uses the first stanza to show how drab life was before war and the dead uses the first stanza for a similar reason to present life as less ‘glorious’ before death. However it should be noted that the Volunteer is significantly more optimistic and idealistic of war than the attitudes presented in The Dead and An Irish Airman Foresees Death because Yeats is more preoccupied with the pleasure that flying brought to the soldier, ‘ impulse of delight’, neither of