Attitude to Life and Death, Essay Example

Attitude to life and death is very specific in different cultures and nationalities – some communities consider it salvation, others believe that it is a huge grief. There are particular groups of population that attribute symbolic features to it and treat it as a specifically meaningful act. At times attitude to death may be predetermined by conditions in which people find themselves, for example in the times of famine or war when life is literally depreciated.

The story “No Name Woman” is welded in the context of a traditional Chinese culture and retold from the first person of the woman’s niece. In her interpretation the situation seems distant and unclear, as the girl herself cannot understand the cruelty committed against that woman. The key is found in the deeply collectivist approach to life the Chinese used to have; bearing a child meant dooming the family and the whole village to famine:  “Adultery, perhaps only a mistake during good times, became a crime when the village needed food” (Kingston 7). Thus, the reasons for her suicide and the murder of her baby are clear – becoming detached from the community meant death and eternal shame. The most striking fact is that villagers and members of her family treated and continued to treat her death 50 years afterwards as a wise decision.

Indians also have a different approach to death differing deeply from grief and sense of loss that exists in the Christian religion – the story about the old Indian Teofilo and his burial by his relatives shows that the main concern was about the soul of the dead, and not about his or her absence among the alive. The first discrepancy is seen in the dialogue between Father Paul, the local priest, and Leon, Teofilo’s relative. As soon as the priest asks about Teofilo, Leon answers that everything is OK, though he knows that the old man is dead (Silko). The finishing line of the story describing the moods after the burial is also highly eloquent about Indians’ attitude to death that ranges far from sadness and mourns: “He felt good because it was finished, and he was happy about the sprinkling of the holy water; now the old man could send them big thunderclouds for sure” (Silko).

Discussing the work of O’Brien titled “The Things They Carried”, one can obtain the clear picture of attitude to death at war – it was always awaited but every time it was sudden and surrealistic. Since the short story is about the troop of young people each of who had his/her own traits of character, hobbies and phobias, the reader sees how afraid they are of death that awaits them at every corner. Because of this panic fear they constantly talk and laugh, trying to drive the fear away, thinking that death will also leave; for this reason they never said the word “died” – they called death of soldiers by words “offed “ or “greased”. This attitude shows a sharp contrast with “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” with the woman denying the fact of death but at the same time trying to preserve rationality, understanding that she has to do something, to say and to leave some prescriptions to children. She faces death at the dawn of her life, at eighty years old, when death is already a normal occurrence; still, the woman resists it and treats it as a regular chore in her long life.

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Perfection Learning. 1990.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. “No Name Woman”. 1975. 12 May 2010. <http://www.hum boldt.edu/~jk35/noname.html>

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Porter, Katherine Ann. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”: A Study Guide from Gale’s “Short Stories for Students”. Vol. 1, Ch. 8. The Gale Group. 2002.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”. 1967. 12 May 2010. <http://www.sgsd.k12.wi.us/homework/kanne/webpage%20stuff/HEng%2010/Am%20Lit/Modern%20Literature/The%20Man%20to%20Send%20Rain%20Clouds.htm>