Entry nº 19: Critical Commentary (second part)

The second text is a fragment of a novel which is written almost completely in dialogue. It has a different tone in comparison with the poem, in this fragment the narrator uses a tone of resignation when the main character, Mrs Fairfiel (the grandma), talks about her son’s death as in line 11: “Did it make her sad? No, life was like that”. The narrator gives an insight into how she and Kezia, her grandaughter, feel about death. With this purpose the author appears as an ominiscent narrator who knows about the characters’ feelings. For example, in line 9: “It was the old woman’s turn to consider. Did it make her sad?”, and in the last line: “Both of them had forgotten what the “never” was about”. Mrs Fairfield is an older and experienced woman who has learned what life is about. For her death is part of life, it is something natural and unavoidable. Her resignation is due to the fact that her son died years ago.
This establishes two important differences in comparison with the poem. First, both texts differ in the time when the deaths happened. In the poem the death is recent, but in the fragment it is more distant back in time. And second, the attitudes towards death are also different. Mrs Fairfield has had time to overcome the feeling of loss. In contrast, her grandaughter reacts like the speaker in the poem. She cannot accept the idea of dying, she is afraid of being left alone and pleads her grandma to promise her that she is not going to die. This is an innocent approach to death.
This fact also points out another difference between the two texts. In the poem the feelings about death are much more strongly conveyed through the use of more dramatic vocabulary. So that, the atmosphere is also different due to the fact that death has been overcomed and the fragment ends with a joyful atmosphere.
In conclusion, although both texts deal with death their authors give us two different approaches to it. In the poem death is not accepted by the speaker who cannot overcome the feeling of loss, but in the fragment the narrator presents a character who has been able to overcome death and sees it as something natural and unavoidable. In my opinion, both texts present different realities in the life of any person because usually when we have just lost a loved person we tend to refuse their death. But as time goes by we eventually get resigned and we overcome the loss. We learn that death is part of life and life is a continuous circle. Although our bodies will some day become dust, the best of us will always live in the memories of those who love us.