Death - Thinking Activity

Death - Thinking Activity

Hello Friends, Welcome to my blog. Death is horrible Right! But, We all know that it definitely come. So why we have fear to die? So, here I am going to deal with the theme of Death as the part of thinking activity given by Prof. Heenaba Zala( ma'am).

Life and Death is a cycle of nature. The law of nature is can't be disturb, if we try to do it then it leads us to our ultimate destruction like Victor Frankenstein, so in the same manner all living beings are mortal, they should die at one point of their life.

There is fear of Death is only because of life...So life put Death into light, one can imagine that if there is no life so existence of Death is zero. So everything existed with the support of other there so there is No need to Death to be proud, "Death Be not be proud" by John Donne…

On the Earth some people leave grand and sophisticated life while some people die with Ordinary Life. But Death is something which unites people.

After Death there is no Social status, No race, No religion, No politics, No country, No residents, No mine and yours, neither fight between religion and no one's feelings get heart. So Death can be seen as Supreme Power which make people together without any bias or difference.

Death is the most favorite subject of every poet, everyone tries to find the answer that how mysterious Death is...and what happens after the death of someone. Man is curious to find these all the answers and poet tries to create poetry on the mortality, immortality, life, death and the life of After Death by his/her intense imagination. So let's have a look on some poets that How they Look at the Death??

Ode on Nightigale

A poem written by famous Romantic poet  john keats, published in 1819. The poem is all about two contrasting situations in life…

• Joy and agony
• Intensity of feeling and Numbness of feeling
• Life and Death
• Natural world and Imaginative world

Death is the most favourite theme of John Keats, here the poem starts from the Real bird Nightingale but as the poem progressed Nightingale became symbol and it can be a symbol of anything like…

• Pure and Unmixed joy
• The poet may expresses his own feelings through the symbol of bird
• It became symbol of beauties of nature
• Bird is also symbol of The Ideal
• Symbolised as Immortal(voice)

In every stanza we can see the shift from Real world to Imaginative world and and vice versa. Here, wine is also idealized because poet used wine not for drinking for entering into the world of fantasy. But awareness of real world pulls him back from the dreamy world.

Joy and pain are two paradoxical situations in human life. One cannot escape from pain. And fear of Death is also unavoidable. Pain, misery and hardship of life always shreds like needle. So poet realizes that Death is the only way to escape from this horrible reality. Death can give peace from all our problems and suffering and struggle.

So in Nightingale poets offers his imaginational world more graceful than real world. But his consciousness lead him to original world in which he feels pain so choose death as "Peaceful world" rest from every hardship.

Because I could not stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –

The Dews drew quivering and Chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses' Heads

Were toward Eternity –

          -By Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson who mostly choose to stay at home, not much interested in social gatherings. So, loneliness is her only friend. Death is Immortality is most fascinating theme for her. So here is one poem on Death…

Usually, People have hidden fear for death and from birth we are living with the fear of Death. But Here, Emily Dickinson emerge with new idea and called "Death as Kind Gentlemen." Life is a journey from Birth to death and Dickinson here try to take her readers into the mysterious journey of Death.

Very first stanza said that Speaker is very busy, So Death kindly stop for him, to take him on ride in her horse-carriage. Here Death is personified and given human qualities who is very humble and kind man.

Throughout his journey speaker passes through peaceful atmosphere like children are playing in a ground in their recess time,  fields of grain which are ripe and setting sun. These three places shows three stages of life…

• Childhood - In which we are growing and playing
• Middle age - In which we all are ripe and capable enough to work and earn money
• Old age - setting sun, Atmosphere became dull like in our old age our bones are weak and wrinkled skin.

Speaker put her all her work aside for the civility of death. Through his journey death is very polite to speaker. And in the last stanza we came to know that speaker is Sleeping in a grave from thousand years. But feel like it is shorter than Day. And the Horse carriage in which she sat is pointed eternity because it is a journey from life to death and afterlife. 

So, In his poem Emily Dickinson try to portrait Death as Kind Gentlemen, and journey after Death is also very interesting and it is the feeling of immortality and eternity.

Death

O thou the last fulfilment of life,

Death, my death, come and whisper to me!

Day after day I have kept watch for thee;

for thee have I borne the joys and pangs of life.

All that I am, that I have, that I hope and all my love

have ever flowed towards thee in depth of secrecy.

One final glance from thine eyes

and my life will be ever thine own.

The flowers have been woven

and the garland is ready for the bridegroom.

After the wedding the bride shall leave her home

and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night.

       - Rabindranath Tagore

From 25 September Rabindranath Tagore started writing poems on Life, Death, Dying and After Death. And wrote last poem on 25th December 1937 which is kept third in cycle of 18 poems originally written in Bengali language and translated by himself in English. The name of his collection is "Prantik."

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - the author of the popular and widely influential "On Death and Dying" printed all Tagore's quotation at the head of each chapter off her  book and also believed that…

 "No one had thought more deeply on death than Rabindranath Tagore."

Death is a very serious topic but Tagore made it very simple, accepted death and ready to meet his lord. He accepts his fate very positively. Everyone know that whoever born on this earth ended into Death so why we are afraid. 

He knows that the time of Death is very near and it is whispering in his ear that his time on this earth is going to complete. He is happy with his life and said like everyone i also feel joy and pain of life. Rabindranath believed that he is a good soul who go into heaven, so where flower is woven and bridegroom is ready for him.

He considered soul as Bride who leaves his home means body and came into heaven where he meets his lord of angel who treated him very well.

So,this poem by Tagore is gave a new face to Death that Death is inevitable so why we are afraid, and Death which takes us to heaven so accept it calmly.

Someone You Love Dies

This is a poem by Foram Shah, new thinker of young India, so I selected this poem to show that how young indian people feel after the death of some loved one. So basically we were broken after the of someone and people try to console us. So the impact of Death on people is negative  and sometime it became over and we can see in these lines that how death lead us to the things which we were never believing.

"When someone you love leave you

You hope for them to come back

Even if it is in another way

You start believing in Superstitions you always thought were stupid."

The last stanza of this poem is very positive and looking forward after Death. Life and Death is a cycle of Nature….So don't be sad…

"And something you have to learn after all of this is that, 

You find the biggest love after the greatest loss."

So this is how different writer see the same thing from different perspective and different point of view.

Thank You......