comparison essay. The Wall and The Hostage
...th his girlfriend, he stops caring about all his relationships. Now that he knows his life is “finished”, he just wants to forget about everything in his past as if “it [was] all a god-damned lie.”(The Wall, pg.348) Unlike Pablo, who stops caring about his relationships in fear of death, Dexter from “The Hostage” does the opposite. Dexter is happily married and has a quite healthy relationship with his wife. As Dexter receives a letter from the General ordering him to go to war, he realizes that he would most likely be killed in war. Instead of thinking that his relationship with his wife is futile now that he is going to die, he gives his relationship more importance and intensifies his feelings for her. He starts caring more for her, and does not lose hope in enjoying their relationship. Facing possible death, his reaction is to raise his optimism to ensure that he can still return home one day and things will be better. From these characters in two different stories, it is evident that when faced with certain death, people react intensely either in a negative or a positive manner. The relationships are seriously affected either becoming insignificant and ignored, or stronger and more intense. Certainty of death not only affects human relationships, it changes our value system. Human values are put through a test once death is near. In “The Wall” Pablo believed in the Spanish cause and anarchy. In his normal life, he stood for it and was willing to fight for it. However, the same Spanish cause lost its value in his eyes when he was sure of his own death. He thought “I didn’t give a God damn about Spain or anarchy, either; nothing had any importance now.” (The Wall, pg.352) When Pablo faced certain death, his values changed because he did not feel the same emotions for the values for which he stood for in his normal life. Unlike Pablo, Dexter in “The Hostage” does not lose his commitment to his optimism. He values his optimism highly. Although he faces likely death at the war front, his optimism, in fact, intensifies further and he sees a ray of hope in being able to return to enjoy a better life. Dexter’s reaction is quite opposite to Pablo’s. While Pablo reacts negatively by shunning his Spanish cause, Dexter puts more commitment in his optimism. Although both stories take place in similar situations, Pablo and Dexter, two entirely different individuals react in two extreme opposite ways towards their cherished values, when they realize that they are going to die. The realization of death makes people act differently because each person perceives death in a different manner. Not only each person’s reaction is different, the very perception of death itself is different for each individual. Since God gave a different personality to every individual, we perceive things in different ways. Our thinking, behaviour and actions which form our personality are the result of our life experiences. Since each person has different life experiences, we develop different personalities. Consequently, how we perceive each experience in life is based on our own unique personality. While a person may see death as a natural occurrence and accept it calmly, another may panic and start behaving erratically. This is evident from the two stories “The Wall” and the “The Hostage”, where the situation is more or less the same. However, both characters perceive it quite...