Journal 31: Comparing Poems

Death in The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls and in The Cross of Snow the two death is directly opposing the main idea of each other in conceptual understanding and theme because in The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls the traveler's death was so insignificant that the ocean waves washes away his footprints, representing his contribution and changes to the world, nonchalantly, and nothing was altered or affected by his death; the tide still rises all the same and the tide still falls all the same. However, in The Cross of Snow, the cross representing the wife of the Longfellow is not gone and unaffected by weather or any other natural changes in any way and the Longfellow is experiencing tremendous grief. Contrary to the stranger's death, the death of the wife was not comparable with the stranger's death because the stranger's death was insignificant and when Longfellow refer to her wife using the word 'martyrdom' we know that she is very significant and her death was more than just any death. It is very sad when a love one dies and strangers die in hospital all the time but it's just like the travelor, it doesn't matter to the people who have no crossing of path with the person who died. "The death of one person is a tragedy, but the death of a million is just a statistic." - Joseph Stalin.