Affirmative Action Essay, Research Paper

Through its unique structure, tone, diction, and irony, the author, Edward EstlinCummings, makes a clear distinction between the two concepts of Death and dying, in thepoem “Dying is fine”. Through a very conversational way of writing, the persona revealshis attitudes toward the miraculous act of dying and the evilness of Death. To describe dying and Death, Cummings applies a very conversational tone . Instead of using figurative language, he captures the values of each with distinct wordsthat just define his point of view toward the subject with just plain as day words. Theauthor’s intentions are to fill our heads with questions or possibly even to respond to ourunanswered questions of Death or of dying. One of the most recognizable attribute of this free verse poem is the capitalizationof the word Death. In fact the only word in the entire essay that is capitalized is Death. The speaker uses this to his advantage to emphasize the insignificance of death onlydefined by society and to capture the meaningfulness of the other words of the poem suchas dying. The author uses punctuation marks to emphasize the importance of Cummingsideas of Death and dying such as unclosed parenthesis to show that if there is a closedparenthesis then the poem is over which means death has begun and the process of dyingis finished. By using a question mark he makes us want to think of the effect and theresult of Death. At this moment we are dying, no matter how old or young we are, if we areperfectly healthy or if we are at our death bed and it is “perfectly natural” to experience it.

“Dying is fine” since it is happening right at this very moment to each and every one of us. Its “miraculous” to die, since its only the act of dying, but we are not at the state of Deathyet. Nevertheless, Death is still staring at us right in the face, whether its coming afterus sooner or later, its going to get to us and “o baby i wouldn’t like death if death weregood”. Death is “artificial” since we haven’t experienced it and all of us have experiencedthe process of dying, considering we have been dying since the day we were born, and itsokay with us. However, Death is a mere mystery that we want to expose, and for we cannot solve this mystery, it must be “evil” and a “sin”. As we read this poem, we realize the great irony that has been used to revealCummings’ attitude toward dying. With this ironic approach, he creates an oxymoron bycomparing dying to “living”. The author illustrates that dying is actually the act of living. This is ironic since the average person believes that dying is a bad thing, where asCummings thinks it is “fine” and “miraculous”. Cummings “thanks the god o mighty fordying”, meaning he appreciates the “god o mighty” for life and birth since birth is actuallythe first day you start to die. As you age more, you die more. Everyday, everyone isgetting closer and closer to the unavoidable “sin” of Death. In this poem, the author deals with one of lives inevitable questions of death. Cummings has used choice words, and a unique form to illustrate a clear picture of Deathand dying. In doing so he has created a relationship between dying and living.