Life After Death

Through three different stories about individuals being tied to another's death, It's extremely apparent that guilt is a major theme. Regardless of what other's think, or what has been proven factual, these people hold this guilt that consumes their lives. The first story talks about six children being struck by lightning and of those six, two dying. The narrator informed us that just before hand, he had attempted to call upon the Devil. Because of this, he felt that he was at fault. The next story told was an excerpt from the ever so famous memoir, Half a Life. Darin Strauss tells his story about the tragedy that involved him, his car, and a girl he had briefly seen around school. In these two stories told, both narrators talk about how these tragic events effected them for the rest of their lives. The third and final story was about John, a war veteran, with Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder. John's story was a little different from the others, in the sense that he purposely did harmful things, just had no recollection of it.  PTSD (Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a mental disorder that is triggered by experiencing or witnessing extremely traumatic events. As John is telling his story, he talks about all the trauma that he experienced throughout his life and being a war veteran was just an addition to it all. Though I personally cannot relate to any of these stories, I can understand why the guilt would leave a lasting impression on each of them. Guilt is something that is in a way, uncontrollable. We constantly contemplate "what if" and "why me" when guilt strikes us and that's just talking about the guilt an average person experiences. These stories teach us extremely valuable lessons. These people were normal people going on about their lives and never did they think that incidents such as the ones they experienced, would happen to them.

Once More to the Lake

The in the short story, Once more to the Lake, E.B White reminisces on his childhood memories with his father as he returns to the lake as an adult with his own son. Through his return, he expresses how nature, and the lake itself, remain to be the same, but life in general has changed. White also mentions how the lake has changed with society and that at the surface level, things seemed to remain the same, but little details from his childhood have been adapted.  As he reminisces, he takes note of every little detail from his past and relates it to the present, highlighting the key points of similarity and differences in the two. Through the text, it's obvious that White has this desire to live on but knows that just like his father, his time to pass will eventually come. White discusses his fear of mortality, which helps individuals relate to the text. Mortality is a major component of life itself and through this short story, we notice how short life really is. While reading this passage, it seems as if it's just a man talking about his past in relation to his present, but towards the end we realize the authors fear of not only death, but change in general. The story is quite depressing but helps teach us that although death is inevitable, our memories will forever hold us close to our past.