My Paper

Danielle Lindner
Literature 110
Michael Sexon
26 April 2010

Make Life Beautiful

We all live with tragedy. Friends, family, political leaders, pets, and even inanimate objects can bring us tragedy which comes with a sad, dark, gloomy, hopeless cloud that rests above us like rain in Seattle. For many years of my life I was under the impression that the world was to blame because it was out to get me and make my life miserable. I was able to see my tragedies and how they negatively affected me but it was not until my first real literature class that I realized tragedy is not something that only happens to certain people but rather that we live a tragic sense of life. Everything we do or buy to avoid tragedy serves as nothing but crutch until tragedy takes over again. Yet, we do everything in our power to hold on to happiness and make the best of what this tragic world has to offer. The difference this epiphany has made for me is a new view of life; life is a tragedy that we make beautiful.

We all experience our first tragedy at birth when we are removed from the only warm, secure, nurturing womb we know and laid on a table to have a nasal aspirator shoved up our nose while another doctor slaps us on our butt till we cry. There is no denying the tragedy in that even though we don’t consciously remember it later. Others we do remember are the deaths of friends and family, the failures we have, the people we hurt and those that hurt us, and many more. Clearly tragedy comes naturally and is here to stay. The only options we have are to succumb to tragedy and welcome death, or fight for happiness.

To help with sadness, humans look for a friendly companion and often we turn to animals. Most any animal will do for a pet, from a cute little dog or a playful kitten to fish, horses, pigs, and monkeys. We buy them hoping they will fill a hole in our hearts by being our best friends forever that always stay by our sides. What I didn’t realize before is that counting on an animal for companionship is only a crutch for tragedy. Most of us outlive our pets and are brought back to the same tragic life while we watch them suffer and die. The animal may have had a long, loving, fun life with it’s owner but the tragedy for both is inevitable. Yet, the dedication we have to making our pets life the best it can be and using them to make our own better as well truly adds beauty to tragedy.

A perfect example of a tragedy made beautiful is the poem written by Edgar Allen Poe titled, Annabel Lee. In this poem the author expresses his never ending love for a girl he is unable to have. The tragedy is him never being able to have the love of his life as well as her never being able to have him. Annabel Lee was taken away by her “high-born kinsman” and taken to a kingdom by the sea where she suffered from sadness. Most people would give up and find a new love, while some would succumb to the tragedy. In the case of this man and Annabel Lee they did neither. They continued their lives with each other in their every thought taking a tragic life of losing their love and making it a tragic life of beautiful love. Edgar Allen Poe writes:
But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we-- Of many far wiser than we-- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams,

bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise,

but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide,

I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

In the sepulcher there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Throughout the semester I have learned a lot not only about the retelling of stories but a deeper understanding of the themes and meanings the stories have to tell. We have talked about heroes and monsters, love and friendships, fate and loss, but what I learned the most from was our discussions and reading on the tragic sense of life. Before this class I was ignorant to the idea that life is tragic and meant to be that way. Once that idea became clear to me I realized that we can not live our lives thinking of them only as a tragedy when there is truly good in the world. Yes life is tragic but it is up to us to make the best of the world while we are on it. When we find love and companionship and dedicate ourselves to them, we are living the only way one could, living a tragic life and making it beautiful.