Taylor Hosea
Amanda Reyes
English 105
26 November 2015
Summary of Piece 1
A black and white photo depicts a small frail body that is
laying in a hospital bed. The individual
is bald and has a blank stare on their face.
The patient is abnormally thin and is propped up in their hospital
bed. There is a woman who is feeding the
patient what looks like some type of food with a liquid consistency. The woman who is feeding the patient has a look
of concern and fear on her face but the patient shows no interest to the
woman. All around the patient’s bed are
hospital machines; some include an IV and what looks like a heart monitor. You can tell that the patient is propped up
in their bed by the angle of the hospital bed they are laying on. Although the patient is bald you can tell she
is a woman by her long painted acrylic nails and her earrings. The patient looks to the left but you cannot
see what she is looking at. The woman
who is trying to feed her is in a white lab coat but it is unclear if she is a
doctor or a loved one. The patient is
the main focus of this image because she is located in the center of the image;
the woman feeding her is located off to the right of the image. The people in this photo are either in some
sort of hospital or a setting where there is hospital equipment present.
Analysis of Piece 1
This image of a lady laying in a hospital bed being spoon
fed by another woman shows the ultimate suffering people with terminal illness
have to endure. The way the woman is
positioned it is clear that she is so frail and weak that they had to prop her
up in her own hospital bed so that she is able to sit up. The blank stare that she wears on her face
can either be a drug induced stare or it can also be that she is so indifferent
to the suffering she is enduring because it has been going on for so long. When I saw this image the first thing I thought
of was the Holocaust because the people you see in the photos who have been
starved for weeks resemble the patient in the photo. The woman looks as though she has not eaten
in weeks and looks very weak. People
with terminal illnesses do not have the choice to decide to not live like this
they have to simply live their life like this daily. Imagine what it would be like not being able
to feed yourself because you or so weak or not being able to lift your own body
up. No human being deserves to live like
the woman in the picture but each year people with terminal illnesses spend the
last days of their lives suffering; if we made death with dignity laws less
people would have to suffer and more people would be able to die a humane,
dignified death.
Summary of Piece 2
This song is written by Sufjan Stevens and it is entitled “Death
with Dignity”. The song opens up with
the line, “Spirit of my silence I can hear you” and then goes on to state that
the person does not know where to begin.
The artist then in the next verse repeats again that he does not know
where to begin and also speaks about a tired old mare. The artist sings about how he or she has lost
their strength, however, the listener is unsure if it is physical or mental
because they do not give this away. In
the third verse which is the next verse the artist ponders on whether or not a
person is a friend and goes on to say that you never know until the end, but
the listener does not know what he means by the end because he does not come
out and say it directly. In the fourth
verse the artist repeats a line twice, “What is that song you sing for the
dead?” The artist also repeats the line,
“Well I got nothing to prove.” The final
verse the artist sings about a road ending and that their mother’s apparition
passes them through the willows. The
song closes with “You’ll never see us again.”
Analysis of Piece 2:
This song is written and recorded by Sufjan Stevens who can
be classified as an Indie Folk artist.
Stevens was born in the U.S and was raised by his father and step
mother; he saw his biological mother occasionally throughout his life but not
often because they did not have a great relationship. Stevens wrote this song in order to deal with
the death of his mother and the guilt he felt due to the lack of relationship
he had with her. The tired old mare that
Stevens refers to is symbolic of his mother; a mare is a female horse. When he continuously repeats “I don’t know”
he is inferring to the listener that he is unsure of how to deal with the loss
of his mother; Stevens does not know what to feel. When he talks about amethyst and flowers he
does so because amethyst represents protection; the amethyst can either
represent the lack of protection he felt from his mother or the protection he felt
from her. Since he did not have a good
relationship with her I interpreted that the amethyst was symbolic of the lack
of protection he felt from his mother due to the lack of her presence in his
life. The desert symbolizes his loneliness
and seclusion because a desert is bare an empty which is how the death of his
loved one has caused him to feel. The
searchlight on his window can be his endless search for the ability to come to
terms with his mother’s death. Stevens
says that he forgives his mother and longs to be near her which can show the
guilt he may feel for her suffering or for his absence in her time of
need. The reference to willows can
represent emotion because willows are symbolic of deep emotion and intuition or
dreaming which could be why he sees her apparition in the willows. An apparition is a ghost of a loved one. Ultimately this song is about a man’s
struggle to cope with his mother’s death; he realizes that he must be at peace
with her death in order to move on with his life. The reason that this song can tie into the
idea of death with dignity is because when someone is dying of a terminal
illness it is not just the person dying who is suffering it is the people
around them as well. No one wants to see
a family member suffering and often when someone is terminally ill they spend
the final moment of their lives suffering the most. If death with dignity was an option for
people it would not only help the terminally ill patient but also help the
family as well to suffer less pain emotionally.
Death with dignity would let the family members cope with the loss of
their loved one without feeling guilt brought on by their family member’s
suffering.
Summary of Piece 3:
This photo is a black and white photo where there if a quote
on the left portion of the image and a man and a woman on the right
portion. The man and woman look fairly
young and they have wedding clothes on.
The woman is in a white wedding dress and is holding a bouquet of
flowers. Her hair is long and healthy
and she has a smile on her face; it looks as though she is mid-laugh. The man is in a tuxedo and is staring at the
woman and also has a very happy expression on his face as well. The background looks like there are many
trees behind them; the leaves are not falling they are intact on the trees and
the trees look like they are possibly blossoming some sort of flower. To the left of the bride and groom is a quote
that reads, “To have control of my own mind…to go with dignity is less
terrifying. When I look at both options
I have to die, I feel this is far more humane.”
The quote is in white bold writing so it is very clear what it reads,
also, the quote takes up a little more surface area spatially then then image
of the bride and groom.
Analysis of Piece 3:
The woman in the picture is Brittany Maynard and her
husband. Brittany Maynard was diagnosed
with an aggressive brain cancer at the age of 29 and was given a very short
amount of time to live. The reason I
chose this photo is because when we think of terminal illness we often think of
the elderly, however, terminal illness knows no age, race or sex. Anyone who is living can have something like
this happen to them no matter how young or old.
Maynard decided that she did not want her loved ones to see her suffer
and that she did not want to endure more pain than she needed to endure. She made the decision to move to Oregon with
her family where she could die with dignity because Oregon is one of the few
states where there is laws for this.
Maynard wanted the world to see death with dignity in a different
perspective; she wanted people to feel positive about it and realize that this
should be an option to all. Often when interview
Maynard would say that she was going to die either way but that she was just
choosing to die a death where she was in control of the amount of pain she would
endure. Brittany Maynard, although, she
is no longer living has made a large impact on the social issue of death with
dignity and has helped influence many people in becoming more open to this
idea. Maynard’s final days were spent with
the people she loved doing the activities she loved. On November 1, 2014 Maynard ended her life in
the most dignified way possible.
Summary of Piece 4:
This song is called “Streets of Philadelphia” and the artist
is Bruce Springstein. The first verse of
the song says how he is bruised and battered and that he can no longer
recognize himself in a window; he no longer can see himself and he is on the
streets of Philadelphia. The next verse
sings that when he is walking that he can hear voices of friends that have
vanished and gone. He also says that he
walks down the street until his legs cannot move anymore (his legs feel like
stone). At night he can hear the blood
in his veins; he refers to his blood as black and whispering. In the third verse he says that no angel will
greet him and that it is just him and his friend. The listener does not know who he is referring
to as his friend. He also says that his
clothes no longer fit him. In the final
verse of the song he talks about how he is slowly fading away and that he will
be left on the streets of Philadelphia alone.
Analysis of Piece 4:
This song was written in the late 1980’s early 1990’s when
AIDS had just became a public scare. I
believe that Springstein is talking about the terminal illness of AIDS in this
song but it can really be applied to any sort of terminal illness. The first verse when he is saying that he
does not recognize himself this can be true of many terminal illnesses because
when you get that sick you often lose weight, your hair, your skin pigmentation
and many other physical traits that make you who you are. When someone is terminally ill they are often
frail and thin which is what Springstein is referring to in the first verse
when he says he does not recognize himself and that he is “wastin’ away”. In the second verse when he sings about
walking the streets alone this is symbolic of how a person who is dying feels
very alone in the world and although they have people by their side feelings of
loneliness can overcome them. The third
verse is about the person coming to terms with dying. They are reflecting on their life and are
scared of what happens after they die because they do not believe they are
going to be greeted by an angel; they refer to some being as their friend and I
believe they are referring to a grim reaper.
A grim reaper represents death; which the person in the song is
meeting. The last and final verse is
about the person taking their last final breath and how they are trying to stay
awake but they are slowly slipping away.
This song is very sad and really helps you to try to understand what a
terminally ill person is going through.
I could not imagine not being able to recognize myself because I am so
sick; it must be terrifying. If death
with dignity was at least an option so many people would not have to feel alone
and helpless in their final days like the person in this song. They would have the option of not having to
not be able to recognize themselves in the mirror; they would be able to have
their loved ones remember them as healthy and happy. Although some may not agree with this idea we
should at least be able to decide for ourselves when put in situations such as
this.
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