Conrasting Past & Present in 3 Literary Works
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This paper is a study of Tennyson's poem "Ulysses," Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," and Tim O'Brien's short story "The Things They Carried," and the uses each author makes of the contrasts between past and present. The contrast between past and present, especially the rosy glow that memory often gives to events in retrospect, is a useful literary device, allowing writers to investigate longing, regret, and the impact of time. This paper also discusses Miller's play in relation to two other dramas, Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex," with regard to what each play has to say about the nature and definition of success. Each writer's definition of success creates intriguing dramatic situations, in plays where this is the central theme and in plays where the playwright's conception of success influences other choices. In Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses," the hero of the Trojan War and of Homer's "Odyssey" reflects on his career and observes, "I cannot rest from travel" (575). The past for him is where his glory lies. Now, as he considers his adventures over, he feels useless and helpless: "How dull it is to pause, to make an end,/To rust unburnished" (575). He speaks to an unseen companion, saying, "You and I are old" (576). He is by nature and temperament a wanderer who is now forced to act as bureaucrat: "I mete and dole/Unequal laws unto a savage race,/That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me" (575).
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ain to recall every clue he might have missed in deciding how she feels about him.
When one of his men is killed by a sniper while Cross is remembering Martha rather than concentrating on his duties, he blames his inattention for the death. He burns the letters and pictures, weeps for his lost comrade, and decides, "Henceforward, when he thought about Martha, it would be only to think she belonged elsewhere. He would shut down the daydreams" (378). He hardens himself, resolving to buckle down to the job at hand and start fresh: "Lieutenant Cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead. He would dispense with love; it was not now a factor" (378). Because he was distracted by the past, he vows to banish memory entirely.
However, his resolve goes against reality; the platoon's baggage includes "grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they has tangible weight" (376). The memory of their fallen comrade haunts them all, since each realizes that he could as easily have caught the bullet. O'Brien implies that Cross will not succeed in his attempt to forget the past.
Success is an important theme in three very different st
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2247
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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