StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

Death as a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
Name of the of the Concerned Professor English 12 May 2012 Death as a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature Though literature to a great extent is a portrayal of the varied aspects of human life, there are some facets of human life that find a more than average scope and place in modern literature…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER91.7% of users find it useful
Death as a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Death as a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature"

Download file to see previous pages

It happens to be the one and only real absolute. Death separates a character from one’s life and loved ones, both of which tend to be experiences fraught with much anxiety. In a way death tends to be the ultimate separation and end of life. In this sense death is an expansive experience in the sense that it is a literary concept that transcends beyond the scope of a work of literary creativity to pervade the fate of entire humanity. Death happens to be a potent theme that is common to Little Bee, Heart of Darkness, The Convergence of the Twain and The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock.

Death is pervasive in all these works of literature, though in each specific work death is not merely about the annihilation of human life, but rather carries a much broader symbolic meaning. Death as a pervasive theme lurks almost on every page of Little Bee by Chris Cleave. In both the flashbacks and the confessions rendered by the two central characters Little Bee and Sarah, unraveling their travails and tragedies, death turns out to be a pervasive reality that imbues the varied aspects of their lives.

Little Bee comes across scenes of abject bloodshed and carnage when her family and neighbors are annihilated and killed by the treasure hunters of black gold, in her village. She vividly remembers how her sister got raped, murdered and butchered like a wild animal. Little Bee tends to be a witness when Sarah’s husband Andrew commits suicide in their study room. Like Little Bee, the life of Sarah is time and again punctuated and jolted by episodes of death. The brutal tale that stands to be the life experience of Sarah gets further highlighted when she and her son Charlie try to come to terms with the shocking and untimely death of Andrew.

Though the three characters that are Little Bee, Sarah and Charlie try to deal with the reality of death in their own unique ways, death at a symbolic level carries an almost singular meaning in their lives aptly conveyed in the words of Sarah, “That Summer-the summer my husband dies-we all had identities we were loath to let go (Cleave 22).” In the novel Little Bee, death in a symbolic context signifies the loss of an identity, an identity that is replete with meaning, acceptance and a sense of belonging.

The central characters in the quest for seeking joy and hope irrespective of this loss of identity tend to surpass the constraints imposed by death and mortality. There is no denying the fact that in the Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad, death is not only a concept that comes out as being ubiquitous throughout the setting of the novel, but rather it is a work of fiction that extends a whole new meaning to the concept of death. In the Heart of Darkness, death is portrayed by Conrad as a sly, intimidating and lurking animal that not only hides in the nooks and corners of the African landscape on which the story floats, but death also emerges to be a primordial fear layered in the dark and complex recesses of the human consciousness (Bloom 14).

In the Heart of Darkness, the plot unfolds in the Belgian Congo, the abjectly notorious African colony, as far as the greed of European colonizers and the brutalization of the Africans is concerned. Death as a symbolic theme operates at two parallels levels in the story. At one level the story deals with the cruelty of the European colonizers towards their African subjects. The African in the story comes out as a black

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Death as a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature Essay”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/english/1451280-little-bee-heart-of-darkness-and-short-story
(Death As a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature Essay)
https://studentshare.org/english/1451280-little-bee-heart-of-darkness-and-short-story.
“Death As a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/english/1451280-little-bee-heart-of-darkness-and-short-story.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Death as a Symbolic Theme in Modern Literature

Martin Espadas Poem Bully and Judith Ortiz Cofers Poem Latin Women Pray

The two statues are symbolic of greatness with Roosevelt's indicating earthly superiority while the statue found in church indicates divine superiority.... The paper "Martin Espada's Poem Bully and Judith Ortiz Cofer's Poem Latin Women Pray" states that changes are exhibited by the changes in the American society by the acceptance of Spanish people while at the same time the society's perception of some religious beliefs has changed....
3 Pages (750 words) Literature review

Influence of Religion at Literature and Art

The paper “Influence of Religion at literature and Art” investigates what influence does religion has at literature and art analyzing the works of Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and Kurt Vonnegut.... Religious societies will find new forms, methods in art and literature and apply to eternal spiritual values.... Such writers created their own literature - the literature of "Lost Generation".... American literature of the 20th century was not an exception....
7 Pages (1750 words) Literature review

Rule of the Bone: A Quest for Independence

The literature review 'Rule of the Bone: A Quest for Independence' devotes to the novel of American writer and screenwriter of 20th century Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) 'Rule of Bone'.... In contrast, the Bank's narrative is set in a comparatively macabre ambiance where the teenagers play with guns and marijuana, little girls are exposed to sexual abuse and pornography, death and violence always lurk in the background and everything ultimately seems to come down to sex and money....
7 Pages (1750 words) Literature review

The Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

The paper 'The Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table' presents the legend that has followed the Western European civilizations throughout the centuries beginning sometime prior to 1100 A.... .... Although the legend changed and developed throughout time.... hellip; This story itself was developed utilizing many sources existing in Malory's day including numerous Norman-French romances and an English alliterative epic entitled “Morte Arthur”....
10 Pages (2500 words) Literature review

Frankenstein: The Art of Darkness

In terms of literature, environmental darkness many times does not go hand in hand with darkness in the mind [2].... nbsp;Just when this trend in the field of art and literature began enjoying smooth sailing, the genre of horror and supernatural mysteries began to make its presence felt and became a favored topic for readers at the close of the 18th century....
11 Pages (2750 words) Literature review

Comparison of William Faulkners and Theodor Roethkes Literature

The paper "Comparison of William Faulkners and Theodor Roethkes literature" highlights that Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” presents poet's inner conflicts concerned with the selection of a profession and his approach to the modern city life.... Critics comment that abusing of childhood is the major theme of the poem "My Papas Waltz"....
7 Pages (1750 words) Literature review

Margaret Atwoods Survival and Sally Morgans My Place

The theories that are attempting to make sense of the distinctiveness of post-colonial writings can be broadly grouped into four major approaches, one of these being a local or regional view, identifying with literature that is less comparative between or across facets of different societies and more introspective.... More global perspectives are considering 'race' across works of literature from diverse nations and also 'compare' between different former 'colonies'....
12 Pages (3000 words) Literature review

Dark Tourism

This literature review "Dark Tourism" focuses on a form of culture that involves people visiting places of death, human tragedy, and other forms of atrocities done to people in the world.... This paper recaps various literature on the motivation, shades and the attraction of this kind of tourism.... It has a growing body of literature in the representation and tourist experiences in the tourist economy.... hellip; The world today has embraced the trend in dark tourism and many have used the urges to make money out of the curiosity that comes with death and disasters....
6 Pages (1500 words) Literature review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us