What Do the Stories Tell Us About the Different Ways That Human Beings Deal with Death?

Adam Dambazau

Marc Desilets

World Literature

2 December 2017

What do the stories tell us about the different ways that human beings deal with death?

Everyone has experienced death sometime in their lives. Death is something that everyone has experienced whether it’s a family member, friend, even your enemies. People often can In “ The Story of the Hour,” and “ The Invalid's Story,” we see how people react differently to death and how it impacts their lives.

In some cases, people choose to look at a death positively. In the “Story of the Hour”, the main character’s husband just died and she is initially sad about it, but then she begins to feel hopeful about her future and looks forward to her future as a single woman because she was unhappy in her marriage and wanted something more. One quote from the story states, “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.” The main character, Louisa feels that she will miss her husband and the love he had for her, but she won’t let his death consume her life and welcomes her newfound freedom.

Grief is a universal response to death. In “The Invalid’s Story”, the main character’s childhood friend just died and he goes to get the corpse and bring it to the parents. The narrator is shocked and grieved by his friend’s death, but he feels that he has no time to mourn his friend and must get on the train. This is proven in this quote “I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter's night, two years ago, I reached home just after dark, in a driving snow-storm, and the first thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend