Tears Idle Tears

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Tears Idle Tears Nathan Ghuman In the breath taking ________ short story “tears idle tear” by Elizabeth Bowen, multiple connections are mad between the story poem and painting. “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.” The first sentence from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Tears, idle tears” displays the genre and tone of all three pieces. Just from reading the first sentence in this poem, you get an understanding that the speaker is weeping or crying. The sadness is obvious but in both stories we don’t really have a grasp on why it is he cries. Reading further we see that the speaker had lost a loved one in the short story we clearly see that a father was lost. Seeing the blunt fact of death we see that there has to be more to the story. When the “apple” was brought into the story we see that the biblical story of Adam and Eve plays a role. In the biblical story Adam and Eve had taken a bite out of apple and that displays the future for them which is death, pain, and grief. Now when we look back to the story the boy takes a bite from the apple indicating he will die too. Finally in the painting “Autumn Leaves” by Sir John Everett we see a little girl holding a bitten apple alongside her three older sisters. The eldest of them has her hand blending in with the leaves. This displays that just like the leaves she is falling too. Overall all three pieces interrogate death and the oh so real day of death nearing us. | |
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