Sharpios auto Wreck: The Theme Of Death Essay example -- essays rese

Sharpios "Auto Wreck" The Theme of Death     Few subjects can be discussed with more than insightfulness and curiositythan death. The unpredictability and grimness of it are conveyed thoroughly in KarlShapiros poem, "Auto Wreck". The poem starts with a description of anambulance rushing to the scene of a crash, and hurriedly gathering up thevictims and rushing them away. The aftermath of the natural law investigation thatfollows leaves the crowd gathered around the scene to explore privately andindividually a range of feelings and emotions close the reality of death.Shapiros usage of imagery together with figurative language is a key element ingetting the theme of death across to the reader. By bringing the scene of theaccident to flavor and relaying the emotions of the spectators with language andseveral metaphors, the poem gains a realistic and sometimes transcendent effect.In some places in the poem, the words can easily be taken litera lly to conveyscenery or an emotion, but they can also be taken so as to make the reader thinkabout possible higher meanings. The thoughtsexpressed in the poem help tosuggest these other meanings by clearly stating what is being felt by thespeaker and the crowd around the accident. By stating clearly and vividly theemotions of the scene, it is easy for the reader to identify the theme itself,and also to identify with it.     In the first stanza, the speaker describes the ambulance arriving on thescene more so than the actual scene itself. The ambulance is described usingwords such as "wings", "dips", and "floating", giving the impression of thehectic nature of its argument at an accident. When the ambulance arrives andbreaks through the crowd, "the doors leap open" to further convey the hurriedstate its in. In line 5, as the ambulance passes the beacons and illuminatedclocks, it gives the reader an obvious intimation about setting . To take the wordsmeaning further, it can be argued that the illumination of the clocks and theemptying light in line 8 symbolize life itself as light in an otherwise darksituation. Also, the allusion to a heart by use of the words "pulsing","artery" and "beating" personify the ambulance as the raw(a) life giving support ofthe victims of the crash. ... ... our physics with a sneer". Taking the meaning from theseparts and the last lines of the poem takes the speaker and reader through the acknowledgment that death is unpredictable and thought provoking, knowing that itcan happen in the worst way at any given time.     "Auto Wreck" deals with the confused subject of death by exposing thereader to the feelings of the speaker after witnessing a crash. The theme thatdeath is unpredictable and grim is presented through these feelings. Thestanzas are set up such that the steps from shock to realization of what deathcontains can be presented in order of occurence. The first stanza describesthe ambulance coming to try to save the victims, and the second stanza dealswith the speedy aftermath of the crash. These first two stanzas reallycreate a background to the final stanza, which takes the reader through a rangeof emotions along with the speaker. The last stanza wholly is the perfectexample of how the imagery and figurative language get these emotions across tothe reader. In doing such, the theme is revealed very clearly and the readercan think to himself for whom the bell shape really tolls.