Literature possesses a vast territory for expressing meaningful human feelings, abstract emotions, or themes. Desperation and comfort is a common theme in literature, encompassed in short stories, poems and dramas and reflected differently through the mechanisms of each literary genres, the style of each literary piece or the personality of the authors.
Various literary genres like short stories, poems or dramas, possess their unique mechanisms for reflecting the theme of desperation and comfort. Looking at Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, the poet uses techniques specific to poetry space for transmitting his desperate adversity to resisting aging and dying. He uses repetitions, alliterations, metaphors and epithets for passionately advocating against peacefully accepting death: “Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Dylan 122). Through the same mechanisms, Emily Dickinson expresses her comfort for accepting death as a metaphysical experience, as a fairy-tale and as a love story: “I first surmised the horses’ heads/Were toward eternity” (Dickinson page). On the other hand, in her short-story “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin expresses both desperation and comfort into a hysterical moment of Mrs. Mallard. When she finds out that her husband was death she could not be happier at the contemplation of her freedom. The Chopin uses description to depict both the comfort of finding freedom and the desperation of understanding that her husband was in fact still alive “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.” (Chopin “The Story of an Hour”).
Ambrose Bierce also uses description in his “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” for expressing the desperation and the comfort of Peyton Fahrquhar. The author uses the story in a story to reflect both desperation and comfort, by setting his character back in time (when he was free), and again in the present (on the edge of execution), into an imagined reality (of escaping the executioners) and again into the present (when he dies). “Peyton Fahrquhar was death; his body was broken neck” (Bierce page). Dialogue and scenic indications are used in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” to express Nora’s desperation for her husband not to find out her forgery that she had to do for having money to cure him from a serious disease: “she says in quick, hoarse, spasmodic whispers. Never to see him again. Never! Never!” (Ibsen 78-79). Body movement is the mechanism that Susan Glaspell chose to use in her “Trifle” for describing Mrs. Wright’s desperation when she was found in her house as her husband was hanged: “She was rockin’ back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind of – pleating it” (Glaspell, “Trifle”). In contrast, in Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” the desperation of getting old is expressed through figurative description “she rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands”. Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” reflects desperation in realistic description of relationships failed to be doomed: “Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of she” (Atwood, “Happy Endings”).
However, although literary pieces may belong to the same literary genre, the way in which they reflect desperation and comfort still differ. For instance, Thomas Dylan’s strong resistance to death suggests a combative style, while Plath’s poem reflects a sad style in her desperate acknowledgment of getting old. In all this time, Emily Dickenson explores the comfort of death with curiosity and excitement, due to her fairy-tale like style. The short stories’ also present desperation and comfort different depending on their style. The elegiac style of Kate Chopin suddenly transforms into hysteria and this transition makes the reflection of desperation unbearable that her character dies. On the other hand, Bierce’s character was already death, but could not see it because his mind was comforted and this representation of comfort was possible due to Bierce’s unique contemplative style. Atwood’s realistic style makes the desperation sound like a normal, daily living feeling in humans’ relationships.
The different personalities of the authors of literary pieces also represent a significant aspect that generates the multiple variances between the representation of desperation and comfort themes. Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” indicates an ironical, almost cynical personality, because she drove her character to going happily insane over her husband’s death while killing, making her dye of heart of desperation when she realized her spouse was still alive. Thomas Dylan’s desperation of fervently resisting “the dying of the light” indicates a determined life-loving, seize the moment personality, while Emily Dickenson’s comfort in accepting death translates a nostalgic and dreamy personality. For Bierce, the comfort of loving memories beats the desperation of the present and this indicates a positive personality, in contrast with Path’s pessimist, negativist personality, as she sees going old as something ugly and sad. Henry Ibsen’s realism and self-awareness personality is vividly portrayed in his character, Nora, who leaves her husband when she understands that he loves his reputation more than her, overpassing the desperate moments of contemplating suicide for embracing a new life alone. The feminist nature of “Trifle” is expressed in the desperation reflected through her character, Mrs. Wright, who feels chained like a bird in a cage. The bitterness and negativist personality of Margaret Atwood makes her mock the comfort of an envisioned perfect relationship by creating multiple additional endings to a love story, none of them happy.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Happy Endings. Accessed 6 December 2014, available at http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rebeccal/lit/238f11/pdfs/HappyEndings_Atwood.pdf. N.d. Web.
Bierce, Ambrose. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Accessed 6 December 2014, available at http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/OccOwl.shtml. N.d. Web.
Chopin, Kate. The Story of An Hour. Accessed 6 December 2014, available at http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/. 1894. Web.
Dickinson, Emily. Because I Could Not Stop for Death. Accessed 6 December 2014, available at http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/443/. N.d. Web.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Accessed 6 December 2014, available at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. N.d. Web.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Maryland: Senerity Publishers. 2009. Print.
Plath, Sylvia. Mirror. Accessed 6 December 2014, available at https://allpoetry.com/poem/8498499-Mirror-by-Sylvia-Plath. N.d. Web.
Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”. Poems. 1953. New Directions Publishing Corporation. Print.
