ipl-logo

Comparing Poems 'Thanatopsis And The Ambitious Guest'

471 Words2 Pages

Kristen Beidleman
3/20/17
Mr.Chernisky
Life Lessons Through Nature
Nature is expressed in the world in many ways like beauty, peace, and youth, but it can also teach people lessons on how to live their life. The poem “Thanatopsis” by William Bryant, the short story of “ The Ambitious Guest” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the essay “ Self Reliance” by Ralph Emerson all have lessons on how to live through nature. The poem Thanatopsis is about what nature has to say about death and dying. It discusses how everyone experiences death and it should be not be feared but embraced. The lesson teached by nature is explained through the quote “Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the …show more content…

He expresses his wishes to leave a mark on the world before he dies to the family. Soon a major avalanche occurs and throws the family into panic. They all run outside towards the safe place but all the family members including the young traveler meet their death. The house is left undamaged and people who arrive at the scene disagree about the presence of the young traveler. In a fateful turn of events the young man’s wish of a grand legacy, his plans and dreams are utterly lost.The fact that the family lives in a very precarious place - next to a mountain where there have been many landslides and that a slide can occur at any moment -- is significant in this story because at the end, a slide does occur and the family and the guest are killed. Nature represents fate in the story. Neither the family nor the guest has any control over what happens to them in the story, in spite of the "ambitious" plans of the guest. The fact that the guest did not achieve any of his goals and how the family members did not achieve any great accomplishments become irrelevant when they are all killed. The irony of the story is that in spite of his plans, no one remembers the guest. They remember the family members because of everything they left behind. So nature is illustrate forces beyond our control in life in a symbolic

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Hitchhiker And An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

    1682 Words  | 7 Pages

    Everyone with a family cares for each other, even when they are dying or want to die. Sometimes when family members are dying, it brings the family close together, which is a good thing. But sometimes the one family member feels left out or they don’t what is happening in their life, so they want to die, which is not always the best answer. “The Hitchhiker” by Lucille Fletcher is a play about a son that is going to California for a trip. “ An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” is a short story that is about Peyton who died hanging from a bridge.

    Read More

  • Part Time Indian Figurative Language

    1256 Words  | 6 Pages

    The theme of mortality, especially death caused by accident, is revealed through the characterization in the book. To start, Grandmother Spirit is an example of a character who is killed by accident. She is the kindest and the most popular elder on the reservation,

    Read More

  • The Death Of A Moth By Annie Dillard

    468 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is not possible to say just what I mean. But a part of it is a terror of the soul at the loss of life, and a part of it is a love of the very process of life." This passage serves as a call to action, urging the reader to embrace life and to not take it for

    Read More

  • Summary Of We Were Here By Matt De La Pena

    1494 Words  | 6 Pages

    He loses a good friend along the way, that alter him into making better decisions. He meets a couple of girls that affects him remarkably in choosing what he must do with his life. With the help of his grandparents, specifically his grandma, he is given reassurance that guide him home. Through

    Read More

  • The Road By Cormac Mccarthy: An Analysis

    829 Words  | 4 Pages

    It talks about the faith in humanity that seems to be depleting, little by little. With that being said, it goes hand and hand with the ending of the book perfectly. In a post-apocalyptic world an animalistic instinct seems to take over, causing everyone to no longer be rational thus making the killings more frequent. It becomes man vs. man, as well as man vs. nature or even to say, perhaps man vs. man and nature combined. Throughout the book until the end, it can be seen that all sense of humanity has been lost and when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the son has witnessed his father’s death, making this book seem like a tragedy from cover to cover but something remarkable happens there too.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Poem In 'Incident' By Natasha Tretheway

    873 Words  | 4 Pages

    Through the poem’s tone, metaphors used, and symbols expressed the poem portrays that fear can make life seem charred or obsolete, but in reality life propels through all seasons and obstacles it faces. The poem begins with a tone of conversation, but as it progresses the tone changes to a form of fear and secretiveness. The beginning and ending line “we tell

    Read More

  • The Farming Of Bones By Edwidge Danticat

    823 Words  | 4 Pages

    He interprets a death mask, wood, and religion to foreshadow the importance of memory and that everyone’s life is worth remembering.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Nature In John Steinbeck's The Red Pony

    897 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hence, through his episodic novel, The Red Pony, and experiences of Jody, Steinbeck explores man’s complex relationship with nature and reveals how human beings are vulnerable and helpless against the nature’s law. To begin with, one of the main themes of The Red Pony is nature such as life, death, rebirth, and loss. In four different stories, Steinbeck uses various symbols, foreshadowing, and imagery in order to convey the message to the readers, which is that life and death always coexist in nature, and in spite of inevitability of death, life will keep going at all time. Steinbeck writes that “All day the dry oak leaves drifted down from the trees until they covered the ground, and yet the trees were unchanged” (p.21).

    Read More

  • Identities Wd Valgardson Summary

    579 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the beginning, he guides the protagonist through a midlife crisis that is almost sure to go wrong. He is a wealthy man, lost in a suspicious part of town in an expensive car. This has trouble written all over it. People in these areas are desperate for money, and robbing a rich man in his Mercedes-Benz would be a more than possible event that could ensue. Most fatal of all however, and most ironic of all, is that “[he is so] intent upon the future that…

    Read More

  • Because I Could Not Stop For Death Essay

    975 Words  | 4 Pages

    Through personification the speaker depicts death as a gentlemen, and not someone who brutally takes our lives quickly, but in a courteous manner. The use of symbolism to describe three locations as three stages of life. These three stages are used to show our childhood,adulthood, and us as elderly soon about to meet death, The speaker also uses imagery to show that all death is a simple cold, then we go to a resting place which is the grave, and from there on we move on toward eternity. Death is a part of life that we all need to embrace, and learn that it is not meant to be

    Read More

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson Use Of Metaphors

    278 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nature is a beautiful component of planet earth which most of us are fortunate to experience; Ralph Waldo Emerson writes about his passion towards the great outdoors in a passage called Nature. Emerson employs metaphors and analogies to portray his emotions towards nature. Emerson begins by writing, “Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers.” , this is a metaphor for how we think; all our knowledge is based on what is recorded in the olden days and a majority of our experiences are vicarious instead of firsthand encounters.

    Read More

  • The Contradiction Of Animals In Plato's Republic '

    2510 Words  | 11 Pages

    In the Book I discussion of old men, the man who has overcome the animal desires is the most at peace with his life and his impending death, while the other fears for what he has lost, and what he may yet lose in the future when he dies. Yet, while the fear of death is primal, animals do not contemplate it. When it is their turn, they simply allow it to happen. Animals do not suffer from the same contemplation of death that we do as humans. If the animal nature is not to fear death – that is human.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Poem 'The Bird, The Star, And The Flower'

    162 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sometimes in life you must break free to see the world. Like the poem “The Bird, the Star, and the Flower” by Milena Salazar, the song “Breaking Free” by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, is about breaking away freely like a bird from the ordinary onto finding a new destination. “We 're soarin ', flying. There 's not a star in heaven that we can 't reach” (Breaking Free) “I am as free as a bird; I hope to touch the stars one day; I see myself soaring over the sky” (The Bird, the Star, and the Flower) The main theme is to soar, explore, and fly onto a new journey like a bird or a star.

    Read More

  • Originally Carol Ann Duffy Analysis

    722 Words  | 3 Pages

    Though the poet tries to create a happy mood at the beginning through her use of rhyme: “fell through the fields” and “the turn of the wheels” as well as reference to the “mother singing”, all is not happy. The word "fell" in the gives a sense of something sad and uncomfortable happening. This sense of sadness is heightened by one of the brothers “bawling Home, Home” and another crying. There is the use of personification in describing the journey: “the miles rushed back to the city” which expresses poet's own desire to go back, and the clever use of a list which takes us back to the place she has just left: “the city, the street, the house, the vacant rooms where we didn’t live

    Read More

  • Importance Of Nature In Literature

    959 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nature is one of the most powerful and mysterious forces of the universe that influences man greatly. Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of nature and soul. It controls all the living, non-living, human, non-human, organic, inorganic and visible, invisible things. It rules over the universe like a monarch and man can’t escape from the influence of nature; he is influenced by both nature and culture. To man nature is the pure and original source of happiness.

    Read More

More about Comparing Poems 'Thanatopsis And The Ambitious Guest'

Open Document