Quiones 1

Natasha M. Quiones Jorge

Mrs. Erskine
English 111
November 20, 2014

Death Is No Different Than Life: Ten Feet Under vs. Underneath The Blazing Sun
Death is an obscure certainty. The thought of such an inevitable end is troubling. Many avoid the thought of such a
travesty; many acknowledge the unavoidable reality. Living entails only one certainty death. Ironically, death
entails a crucial unknown, an acknowledgeable uncertainty how, where, and when an individuals story shall end.
Time is relative; time is predictable; time propels forward, not backwards. Imagining a clock, delineated above
incognizant heads, counting down to an inescapable annihilation is unfathomable and petrifying. People avoid the
truth to concentrate on and enjoy the finite time available to them, however, its important to take into account the
overwhelming number of similarities between existing as a cognizant, breathing being and as an inanimate, obsolete
corpse.

Life is a clich rollercoaster. There are a plethora of emotions clinging to an individuals essence, strapped onto his
philosophically bare back, like an innocent student with a backpack. When one dies, there is no emotion; there is no
energetic and busy brain available to process the thought, let alone to twitch a finger or blink an eye. Rather, death
forces those attached to the departed to feel the painful absence the lifeless carcass has granted them. The emotions
that cannot be processed by one, transfers to those capable of accepting the painful reality that they will never see
their loved-one again. The only things remaining are photographs and fleeting memories.

Photographs, among other platforms, depict both the beauty of life and the elegance of death, the valor of war, the
glamor of sacrifice, and the allure of a tragic and dramatic anti-fairy tale finale. The painting titled Massacre Of The
Innocents crafted by Peter Paul Rubens in 1611, recreates an excerpt from the highly influential Holy Bible of
Herods order to kill every young man in Bethlehem: a bloody and macabre collection of oil paint on canvas.
Infamous artist, Andy Warhol created a piece titled the Big Electric Chair. Warhols grim reconstructed photograph
profoundly contrasts the brighter pieces he is known for (i.e. pop art photos of soup cans and the alluring Marilyn

Quiones 2
Monroe). Charles Bukowski wrote various poems about promiscuous women, booze, love, and eerie suicides.
Renowned poet and playwright, William Shakespeare composed tragic plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, Julius
Caesar, and Macbeth. Yet, he also produced the various bright comedies, Midsummer Nights Dream, Tempest, and
Winters Tale. Authors obsess over life and death because they are both equally essential to human existence. We
live and we die, everything else is just an illusion, recites Freddie Highmore in Gavin Wiesens The Art Of Getting
By. Considering how opposite life and death are depicted, they seem to be strung together, connected, by a strand
of morbidity. Wiesens thoughtful dialogue allows those who listen to consider a taboo: life is similar to its divergent
counterpart.

There is a cardinal fact that must be taken into account weighing heavily on this thesis: time. Time forces change. If
life and death could be physically portrayed as glossy glass spheres, one would be white and the other, black; time
would be a metallic string, both indestructible and perpetual, connecting the two. Every starry night that blossoms
into a dazzling day, robs society of yet another spec of humanitys finite existence. Yet, people subconsciously bask
in the beauty of the transforming world around them they bask in their fleeting time. They bask in their declining
numbered days: 100, 99, 98 And although time connects life to death, they concurrently and exponentially
contrast. The amount of time an individual lives cannot compare to the amount of time he has spent as a nonexistent
entity or the amount of time he will be dead. Time is a part of life as much as it has nothing to do with a human
heartbeat.

It is painfully apparent that existence is finite. It is depressing for those who accept it and fails to affect those who
ignore their impending fate. It is foolish to ignore the apparent connection between both the white and black spheres
because their unavoidable similarities and inescapable differences allow for a deeper and higher-level of
understanding to formulize within the conscious mind regarding the polemic philosophical paradox that revolves
around when one both lives and irrepressibly suspends his subconsciousness.