How Does Houck Use Diction In Rising Phoenix

Nature is first described in a peaceful and confident mood as something majestic, with the sun as the powerful being which controls this nature. However, by the end of the first stanza, “The hawk comes”. This phrase is said as if the narrator is afraid of the hawk and its presence is going to change the mood of the rest of the poem. The next stanza suddenly uses sharp diction, such as “scythes”, “honed”, and “steel-edge”, to illustrate the hawk’s stunning motions and the powerful aura of the hawk that is felt just from its existence, causing the mood of the poem to slowly transition to fearful, yet respectable. The narrator adores this change the hawk is causing on nature, and describes the scene with the hawk in awe, showing how the poet finds the changing of nature attractive.

The phoenix helped illustrate themes by symbolizing Montag’s spiritual rebirth, the cyclical nature of life, and the rebirth of society. The phoenix

Death is the final stage of an organism’s life. Death can come at anytime and by any means, whether it be severe injury or natural causes. However, death is always an inevitability that comes to every living being on Earth, and is an unavoidable fate. “The Masque of The Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson both present these realities of death to the reader, but by different messages and occasionally methods. Poe focuses on the aspect of time, while Jackson moulds death around luck.

Chuck Palahniuk once said, “The first step to eternal life, is you have to die.” In William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis”, he does not mention eternal life or anything religious, but speaks about death. He tells his readers that death is a natural thing and they should not worry about it. William Cullen Bryant, in his poem “Thanatopsis”, portrays a comforting view of death. Throughout the poem, Bryant encourages his readers by explaining that in death they are not alone, that death, like life, is a natural process, and that they will be among some of the finest people who walked the earth.

Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both

Mary Oliver’s poem, “Sleeping in the Forest,” presents a peaceful and vivid representation of death and its relationship with nature. As the poem begins, the reader is introduced to the earth welcoming the speaker back into the realm of nature. Man was created from the dust of the earth and when we die, our bodies return to the dust. However, this poem presents a more beautiful image of what death is composed of. Death is often portrayed as being frightening and disturbing. When individuals are presented with the thought of death, they often push this thought away out of fear and ignorance. Everyone will die someday whether we ignore the thought of death or not. However, Oliver creates a relaxing and welcoming image for the reader on what death (ideally) is. Obviously, since Oliver is still alive, she doesn’t know what death feels like. However, the way she describes death, I hope that it feels like sleeping in a forest; full of stars and enchantment.

The next four lines address death with symbolism and personification to establish the idea of not fearing the unknown future. In line 5, the voice talks about the life cycle

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalcom is a raw and unfiltered look at one of the most difficult challenges everyone faces, death. He takes you through the real-life experiences of his patients, past and present, and shares his thoughts about death. The real-life examples have a way of grasping your attention and pulling you in. He assists his patients in recognizing the reality of death, but not fearing it. Yalcom suggests that people have varying degrees of death anxiety. For some, death is not even a thought, while for others it may consume their thoughts. He also suggests that our everyday anxieties may ultimately originate from our fear of death. He includes observations of approaches used by famous philosophers. While reading, you cannot help but to contemplate your own life and envision your death.

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

When so much of one’s life is left up to chance, it is nice to know that one can find certainty in death. Whereas life can be moulded to perfection and death is a guarantee, there is no way to tell what one will face following death. There are millions of different cultures, religions, and individual beliefs pertaining to the afterlife, but a definitive answer will never be known. The works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson express two very unique interpretations of death and what follows. Both Whitman’s and Dickinson’s views of death include an idea of an afterlife, or of a continuation of the soul post death, but where Whitman welcomes the idea of demise without a trace of fear and his overall view of death is more mystical, Dickinson has a negative view of death and, at times, questions the possibility of an afterlife entirely.

One of the greatest mysteries of a person’s life questions the time of their death. Those who live to the fullest understand this concept completely to achieve that level of happiness. On the other extreme end, it can cause nightmares to those that try their utmost to run away from the clutches of death. This notion is masterfully inquired into the gothic works of Edgar Allan Poe. The best implementation of this idea is in his “Masque of the Red Death” short story which deals with the abstract of death itself. Shirley Jackson, the author of “The Lottery,” published the narrative 100 years after Poe’s own. Despite the difference in time she still draws the same conclusion about death’s certainty just as Edgar Allan had. Thus, Poe’s “The

His previous “cold reprieve” has been warmed by the leaves that “burn red” before dying in nature. The short but beautiful life of the leaf is a metaphor for what life should be - beautiful regardless of the time given. This juxtaposition of life as a “cold reprieve” changing into the image of a leaf burning “red” shows how the voice’s view on life is changing throughout the poem by the echo’s prompting. Realizing that nature is beautiful in death, he now understands that life is a beautiful journey leading up to death that should be cherished in all of its beauty. Dying is a process that can bring “ecstasy” in its wake. Waiting for death is not so bad when a beautiful life surrounded by joyful experiences is so readily available to all that are willing to think positively. Regardless of the beauty that can come with life, it can seem to become a burden that people suffer through until death. The grief that comes with “life’s long disease” will be resolved in death. Death is not an “enemy” to be feared, but a natural part of life that must be accepted. In contrast, the worst enemy of the voice is himself - his own uncertainty and worry have caused all of his pain. All of the rhetorical questions that he asks display the extent of his worry about the unknown future, but his subconscious begins to soothe his worries and comfort him with the

Mortality is a moving and compelling subject. This end is a confirmation of one’s humanity and the end of one’s substance. Perhaps that is why so many writers and poets muse about their own death in their writings. Keats and John Donne are two such examples of musing poets who share the human condition experience in When I Have Fears and Holy Sonnet 1.

“When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver is a poem where the speaker is contemplating their own demise. At first, it seems as though the speaker is fearful of death coming talking about it as though it is sudden and surprising, but in the end she turns out to be much more afraid of her life and her memories and experiences in that life. The speaker seems to fear, as she puts it, simply living and then dying, having not experienced and adventured the world to the fullest extent. The speaker uses the coming of death and the experiences of life to convey a message of uncertainty, which causes the speaker to reject the idea of the constructs that create uncertainty; time, life and death.

In today?s modern society we have a certain distaste for the subject of death. There are people in society feel uncomfortable with the subject of death. The subject of death is a reality that we need to face everyday. There is nothing any of us can do about