Death Free Essays

Analytical Essay of Donald Halls’ â€Å"A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails† Donald Halls’ â€Å"A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails† is a symbolic presentation of the decay of New Hampshire the author uses the life of Washington Woodward to show the pointless existence that is experienced in a place as lifeless as New Hampshire. He uses the contrast of his own opinion and the beliefs of Woodward to show how after a while it is impossible to escape a pointless mindset. Washington finds joy in discarded relics such as old nails, and wood, and finds simple joy in simple life. We will write a custom essay sample on Death or any similar topic only for you Order Now He settled on life, in his lifeless town and spent his life with his animals, his stories, his beliefs and his box of â€Å"A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails. †(Hall) In the opening paragraph of Donald Halls’ work â€Å"A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails† the narrator of the essay states that â€Å"[he] was always aware that New Hampshire was more dead than alive. † (Hall 252) The decay of New Hampshire as a town was symbolically presented in the comparison with Washington Woodward and his ironically pointless life. The author uses imagery to depict the useless life that was led by Woodward. The essay puts a lot of weight on the phrase â€Å"a hundred thousand straightened nails† however the phrase that carries this essay and portrays the images that the author wanted to be delivered is â€Å"string too short to be saved†. The irony of the sentences draws the reader in and makes the reader think about exactly what is being stated. Imagine a box, labeled â€Å"String Too Short to Be Saved†, time was put into creating or finding that box, time was put into labeling the box, and more effort yet again was exhausted to collect the strings, all to be put into a box, clearly stating that what was in the box had no purpose whatsoever. Woodwards’ life was like a box of strings that no one really needed. Hall uses Washington to portray his fear of someday becoming as lifeless as the man that he was describing. â€Å"He had lived alone†¦worked hard all his life at being himself, but there were no principles to examine when his life was over. † (Hall ___) Washington never gave himself the chance to fall in love, or experience fatherhood, â€Å"the only time Washington ever showed romantic interest was when a young girl named Esther Dodge helped out at the farm one harvest† (Hall__). Hall is affected but revisiting his cousins’ meaningless existence because it brings him to think of himself, still unmarried at the age of 33 (which he remained for 11 more years). Woodward was also one of the few remaining relatives of the author; he was in a way a living legend for him. Washingtons’ life was like an anecdote, not only for Donald, but for the rest of his family as well. â€Å"After I had finished laughing†¦the final effect of the stories was not comic† (Hall 253). Hall clearly states that â€Å"[he] turned Washington into a sign of the dying place† (Hall 253). New Hampshire is described as a hidden shell away from the materialistic world that we have created for ourselves. Hall describes that Washington did not need anything more for supper than â€Å"milk and bread† (Hall __)he had no need for money, it merely did not exist for him; even when he put in the effort to make it he would give it away, that he found common things such as lipstick and dancing an abomination. A person sticking to his word meant more to him than money. The life of Washington Woodward begs the question of what a meaningful life is. The author says that New Hampshire like his cousin is more dead than alive. But why is New Hampshire dead? Why is Woodwards’ life meaningless? Is a life spent making money, playing cards, and dancing, any more meaningful than a life spent straightening out old nails, house training milk cows and eating milk and bread? Hall talks about the â€Å"disease† and â€Å"decay† that he believes life in New Hampshire to be, however, he uses a person to show the life of a town rather than explaining why it is that the town is decaying, this shows the reader that a decaying town has nothing to do with the actual town. It is the mindset behind the people who inhabit the town. Life can be meaningless anywhere whether it’s the middle of New York City, or in a shack on an old country road. Hall describes Washington as a child, and as an aging adult, which gives the reader the image that there was no life in between young and old. He had no wife, he had no children, no real job, no real accomplishments. He lived a simple life, almost as if he was just waiting for it to end. Donald states that the only thing Washington truly enjoyed doing was talking, which is an interesting characteristic to have for a closed off, lonely, misanthropic man. Perhaps he hoped that speaking would give people a window into his beliefs, thoughts and interpretations. However his long drawn out stories about shooting deer and picking apples had no insightful representation and therefore almost everything he said was shrugged off as mindless nonsense. He mentions that his grandmother was so good at responding to his stories with generic phrases such as â€Å"you don’t say? † that his grandfather almost believed that she would be able to do it in her sleep. His fanaticisms, which might have been creative†¦I felt that he was intelligent†¦but I had no evidence to support my conviction†¦it’s as if there had been a moral skeleton which had lacked the flesh of intellect and the blood of experience† (Hall 261) in this description Hall depicts that all in all his cousin could have been a smart, intellectual with valid opinions and thoughts, this once again goes to show that Woodward wasted away what could have been a productive, helpful, inspiring life on â€Å"milk and bread† his mind and his life was not nurtured into the what it could have become. In this entire essay Hall uses Washington as his image for what not to become. His fear of a useless life is overwhelming. He fears that a place like New Hampshire will suck the life out of him, remove his joy, take away his beliefs and his interests and leave him with nothing but time, time that will need to be wasted away on meaningless activities and pointless interests. In conclusion Donald Hall uses his interpretation of Washington Woodwards’ life, and his view on his dying buried away home of New Hampshire to express his fears of living a hopeless useless and meaningless life. Throughout the essay he uses words such as â€Å"dying† â€Å"decaying† and â€Å"solitude† to show that the life that was lived by Washington is not the life that he wants for himself â€Å"†¦his gestures have assumed the final waste of irrelevance† Hall wants something more than irrelevance and nonsense after he is gone, something more to be remembered by than just a box of strings that are too short to be used. He wants to escape the decay of New Hampshire, escape the decay of a life that was pointless. He wants to end up with something more relevant than â€Å"A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails†. How to cite Death, Papers