Donald Barthelme, Essay Example

Puzzling out what death substantiates to life have given many writers sleepless nights. However, it is encouraging to see a writer like Donald Barthelme, depict this deep-seated question in a school setting. The startling idea about death brought forth by Donald Barthelme, perfectly evaluates what death is, despite the fact that the main characters are children.

According to Donald Barthelme, the issue of death, fear, loss of innocence and responsibility should be looked into on a different perspective. Death brings forth new opportunity. Donald Barthelme affirms that new opportunity upshots the positive gains. In this regard, it is true that the new opportunity will come out after certain things have been eliminated from their existence. Death is something that mature people should be worrying about; however, Donald approves this phenomenon by using school kids in addressing the same. Although an interesting stuff it was, the secret behind this is that he wanted to achieve the tone of the story for the sake of the audience.

The general tone in the story is friendly. At times, it is difficult for an author to address “death” issue as if speaking to a friend. However, my interest as a reader was compacted by the idea of children puzzling out this sensitive issue. This was a kind of irony, where children get the guard of addressing sensitive issue, instead of mature people who to some extent are believed to understand life. Well, the class is associated with a colossal amount of death, hence forming a discussion. After which the whole story, reverted with the extreme amount of exposure, forms the losses of the innocence of the unknown. I notice that this was the only means of attracting the reader, in view of the fact that the style used by Barthelme brings forth fear, calmed with hope. Donald Barthelme was right, a story that talks about death, should be addressed stylistically with assistance of a friendly tone.