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Two Views of Impending Death

He shows this with the tree losing its leaves and them all lying dead on the ground. The few leaves that the oak is keeping are symbols that represent the "few" years that the speaker has left in his life. The oak acts like the tree of life retaining years that are still to be lived. "The last lone aster is gone; / The flowers of the witch hazel wither" presents a recurring way that the speaker conveys his thoughts about death. The aster and witch hazel are plants that flower and bloom in the autumn. They are withering in life when they really are by nature's law supposed to be blooming. The poem closes with this inspiring thought, "To yield to with a grace to reason, / And bow and accept the end / Of a love or a season." In these lines, the speaker discloses that he is thinking about succumbing to reasonable thoughts and going "with the drift of things." He is struggling with the contrast of his old ideas that to do so would be "treason," but the new indications all around him seem to encourage him to finally admit to himself the fact that he will die. He is filled with much resistance and hesitance, but he seems to be coming to terms with the end "Of a love or a season" which represents his life. In the end, a very stubborn and reluctant speaker allows himself to be increasingly more at ease with his fate and the reader wonders which way the scale will finally tip.
             The view of death in Countee Cullen's "The Wise" is strikingly different from the outlook expressed in Frost's "Reluctance" and remarkably open to new experiences and optimistic about what lies ahead. Here the speaker desires nothing more than to be in the company of the wisest men he knows - the dead. "Dead men are wisest," shows that the speaker believes that dead men are the wisest because they have already lived a full life and can look clearly back on their successes and mistakes. They have an eternity of time to ponder and correct many of life's puzzles and challenges.


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Arlen represented impending death. ... Through discovering what these two prisoners were truly like, you begin to feel no hate or fear towards these supposed perpetrators of crime. ... This, once again, encourages us to view upon the death penalty as a negative thing. ... Unconcerned with his impending execution, he takes every opportunity to attack the guards. ... By him getting shot, we get diverted onto another track where the view on the death penalty can still be seen as negative. ...

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2. John Keats

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4. Capital Punishment: The Abolitionist View

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Because of his obsession with Catherine, Heathcliff views her as heaven and living without her is hell to him. Catherine's desire for attention is never fulfilled so she views life as hell and death as heaven. ... When Catherine impending death is evident, Heathcliff proclaims ""Two words would comprehend my future - death and hell. ... Because she doesn't get this type of attention, Catherine views life as hell. ... This vast differences in infatuation cause the great difference in their views of heaven and hell. ...

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