William Cullen Bryant Thanatopsis Reflection

The poem Thanatopsis translates into "View of Death" and this poem is all about mortality and coming to terms with death (Huff). The poem begins with light and airy just like a child's life and their worries about death. They have no worries about death it is just a thing that happens to others."To Him who in the love of Nature holds/ Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/ A various language; for his gayer hours/She has a voice of gladness, and a smile" (Bryant 1). The beauty of life is precious and it will eventually end just like nature goes though life so do the trees and other wildlife. The speaker of the poem does not believe that death will come to him at the beginning but towards the end he sees his death and almost welcomes it because he has come to terms with the ending of time. This romantic period presents the beauty of life even in the face of death. "Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist/ Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim/ Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,/ And, lost each human trace, surrendering up" (Bryant 21). This description of the beautiful Earth and the fact that this is were you will die and be buried in the ground or in the sea does not seem so dark and scary the way the Romantic writers present it.

The darkness of the narrow house that the will soon be everyone's final resting place could have been written simple as a coffin (Huff). This lighter version of a person's final resting place being a house is more friendly than the darkness of a a small box made of wood.

"Yet not to thine eternal resting place/ Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish/ Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down/ With patriarchs of the infant world,- with kings, / The powerful of the earth, - the wise, the good,/ Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,/ All in one mighty sepulchre"(Bryant 31).

The poem also express the equality of death and that everyone will eventually rest here and that even the mightiest, and wealthiest can not escape death. The equality of the death among everyone makes the Earth the collective crypt and this brings the idea of the dead being buried everywhere (Huff). Death is part of the circle of life and each person will come to face it but it many different ways. We die just as the trees and animals do it is part of the circle that never ends. Once you die you become a part of the ground and that ground grows plants and animals eat plants. These plant eating animals will be eaten by bigger animals or will die and eventually the one's eating the smaller animals will die and the circle of life starts again. Thanatopsis is a life poem with the descriptive elements and beauty that is the Romantic period even when discussing the darkest of topics.

"16. Thanatopsis. William Cullen Bryant. Yale Book of American Verse." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "'Thanatopsis'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Journal 19

The natural and spirituality in the life cycle is extremely important in giving people hope and reason to live. The spirituality of a person I believe determines how they act and the choices they make. The choices that people make determine that person's character and one of the biggest decision that they make which determine the way they choice is their spirituality. Spirituality gives people hope and the feeling of security. People want to know what will happen to them and they need the feeling that someone is looking out for them. The knowledge that someone is their looking out for them like God in the Christian faith influences people. They know that if they make the right decisions they will be rewarded with the gates of heaven opening and them getting eternal life. But if an individual chooses badly they will seen the gates close and they are rejected but they still know they will meet an end and even though it is not a good one it is an end and the unanswered question about life after death is answered. The human spirit is a life changing thing and can give people the strength to believe and do almost anything. The natural life cycle starts with birth and ends with your death and the middle area is where your spiritual life takes control and the natural cycle of aging are present. The saying of live life like you were dying are something that could influence people do to anything and to believe. The belief that tomorrow or today could be your last gives people the hope to do what they thought they could never do before. The hope that family and friends can bring are able to change life or death. Someone could be dying and their hope and belief that they will make it could actually save their live. It also lets the people that are watching them have faith that their loved one will be okay whether they die and go to heaven or if they make it out alive. Life is to precious to waste and as it could all end in a minute. The best thing to do is to live your natural and spiritual life to the fullest and believe that everything is going to be alright.

Journal 18

The perfect autumn day is when the the leaves are perfectly turned yellow, red, and orange and a softly falling to the ground. The other day I was walking on the beach and it was cool and the you could smell the forest and feel the light cold wind hit me and the mush of the sand in between my toes. The smell of the fires that roast toasty marshmallows and carmel apples. The crispy crunch as you bite into the apple and the juice sprays on your face. The best autumn day would have to include a great big bonfire with a weenie roast and s'mores afterwards. The weather in fall is the best because you wear a pair of jeans with a sweater shirt and it feels fine. The cold has not completely taken over and you do not have to worry to much about wearing a big winter coat. The noise of the leaves crunching under your feet and the blowing of the wind and the whistling of the wind. Fall is the most awesomest season ever. The fall has the best events like Halloween and Thanksgiving, which rock. Halloween is awesome because you get to dress up like whatever you want and get free candy. Thanksgiving is amazing because you get to eat as much as you can all day but it is also the day where you are stuck watching football all day and it stinks. Fall is beautiful and it is great and I love the fall. The best part is whenever you go outside in the fall all of your senses are activated. Fall is great and you usually get to eat a lot of pie because Thanksgiving is a big party full of food and there is always leftover pie and stuff for someone to eat. I am so excited for apple and pumpkin pie. We are having fried turkey and it is going to be great and I am going to be so excited and tomorrow is pie making night family tradition.

Journal 17

Nature is really yucky sometimes and I have never been camping in my life so I really do not get the bond the wilderness. I love the ocean and the beach which are the best places in the world the sun warming your skin and the fresh cool water that makes you feel awesome. I would love to go camping once in my life with the whole hiking in a National Park and setting up a tent. My family's idea of camping and bonding with nature is the view from the hotel window and the pool. The ocean is the best and I love visiting. You get a nice tan in one day and can lay out in the sand which is nice and warm. The salty water makes your skin feel nice the only downside to the beach is the crazy amount of sand that is stuck to your body all over and it takes forever to get rid of it all. That is the worse part of the beach the insane amount of sand that is everywhere. I love the water and another awesome bonding experience with nature would be the time we went white water rafting down the Leigh High river it was a twelve hour adventure in the water between these beautiful mountains and they were awesome. The air was warm and so was the water and it was a great day because I spent it with my family and we had a big adventure together. This makes hanging outside awesome. I can not wait for our next trip down the river in a few months we are planning to go down the river in the summer for my little sister's sixteenth birthday. Nature is cool but the rain and the cold really make the days stink and I do not like the cold cloudy days. I can not wait for the summer months because the winter stinks and I hate the cold. I can not wait for the first snow though because that is so pretty to look at.

Journal 16

This project is a type of experiment to see how well we can work without see or even knowing the people in our group. This makes us extremely dependent on the Internet and computer access and hoping that people will respond in a timely manner. We can use email and cell phones to communicate what needs to be done and distributed. This experience is a really good way to teach students how to interact among people that we do not know and work together to complete a project. When we get to college we are going to have to work with people who we do not know well and have to work around different schedules and find out how to make it all work out. I can not wait to go to college and I cannot wait till I am done with high school. This new way of social media is dehumanizing in a way because we are not meeting the people and that is isolating people and destroying or human to human relationships. Eventually people are not going to be able to speak because the people are so dependent on technology to communicate their views and thoughts. I like to make posters and do presentations that do not involve technology. We may have to make a todays meet to also keep everyone connected to the project. I do not have a facebook and I do not want one because I do not like the fact that people could know my whole life. What is it with the technology obsession that is making Americans socially dumb in real life. This is why we have dating sites and other social media ways of communication. I kind of wish I lived in the sixties with the sock hops, poodle skirts, and drive in movies. That was a great time in history every one knew each other in the town by talking with them and have a actual conversation and being involved in their community. You should feel more connected to people by seeing them face to face instead of just interacting with them over the Internet they are a person but people are not always the same online as they are in person.

Journal 15

Long distance communication is hard to keep in touch with others and limits some of the things that can be done. Most of my family lives in New York so we use facetime and skype to communicate with each other. The difficult part is not knowing if the person is going to do their share of the project and if they do not you have to find be able to either stress the importance of them doing there part or you have to do it yourself. I dislike group work a lot because people do not always do their share and getting the work done is sometimes hard and the group is usually forced to work outside of class. Getting together is going to be impossible for this project so we have to rely on other means of communication like email and that sometimes is not always perfect. People forget about things and are not always going to remember and you can not be there to remind them you have to rely on them checking their email or whatever means of communication the group uses. Group projects with people not in the same area are even harder because they rely on the Internet and computers and if an individual does not have one of these necessary tools they are going to have a hard time trying to work on the project. Another factor is the fact that you do not know who these people are and how reliable and hard working there are until after they forget something or do not do their homework. I do not have a facebook page because I hate the Internet a lot and this might be a problem but it can be fix pretty easily. The communication has to be constant for everyone to know exactly what needs to be done and to check up on the others in the groups. This project should be really cool and different than others that we have done and I am excited to see how this works.