Fiction Has the Unique Attribute of Being

Fiction has the unique attribute of being able to be relatable to a person regardless of its implications to real life. No matter how bizarre a plot or character might be, it is the meaning behind everything that is obvious that makes the interpretation of stories unique and applicable to the human experience. This is greatly demonstrated in a collection of quotations from a variety of stories that all share one commonality: survival. No matter how tough things go, and no matter what life's circumstances can be, survival is the ultimate goal, and these stories all bring together that philosophy in a variety of ways, but all coming up with the same equal concept.

Nothing brings on this notion of survival more than Zora Neale Hurston does in her story "Sweat." Life is all about how hard one works in order to be able to excel and in order to get by on a day-to-day basis. In the particular line, "Delia's work-worn knees crawled over the Earth," one can visualize the struggles that this woman went through and was currently going through in order to just get by and get through all of her problems, yet through it all, she survived, and demonstrates this to all her readers, that one can survive as well. In conjunction with this theme of direct survival is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" with the line "There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes." Instead of trying to conform to the unfortunate circumstances, the character thought of ways to get through her unfortunate situation, giving her strength to survive. As one thinks about such conditions, there is always this need to survive a physical situation which is causing one to accrue doubt.

The need to bring some sort of irony to life in order to survive its tough times is depicted by a couple of authors throughout their stories. Tragic irony can be seen in Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby." In order for the physical survival of one of the main characters, Armand, he basically kills his wife and baby because of his belief that they are tainted with African-American blood, yet the irony of his need to survive by eliminating those who he thought were a threat to him came when the author writes, "...Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery." By having this in the story, there is a twist that was not expected and makes one think about the ironies that life can offer from time to time. One is always in a state of mind where in order to survive and move along, things are done without thinking twice and without considering that things affect everyone in different ways. Life is ironic and something can be thrown our way that may seem unbearable, but in the end, it is how the situation is handled that makes all the difference. This same philosophy can be seen in another of Kate Chopin's works, "The Story of an Hour" in which irony and witticism is brought upon the readers when describing the main character's death, "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of the joy that kills," demonstrating that life cannot always be taken seriously, and that from time to time, in order to get along, one needs to laugh and make the best out of unfortunate circumstances.

Sometimes one has to live life without taking things to heart. In order for one to live day by day without the constant worry of everything that is going on around them, one has to pretend like nothing is happening. Ernest Hemingway depicts this in his story, "Hills like White Elephants" when his main character is going through a very tough situation and has had trouble, as many times everyone does, deciding on what it is that she wants or has to do, and at the end, with the line "I feel fine...There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine" everything seems to be resolved for her. This occurs many times throughout one's lifetime. When things are too difficult to handle, a human's immediate defense mechanism is to pretend like nothing is going on and sometimes that is the best solution to things, as Zora Neale Hurston writes in "Gilded-Six Bits." She states, "Joe said nothing. He fooled around the house till late in the day, then, just before he went to work, he went and stood at the foot of the bed and asked his wife how she felt. He did this every day during the week." If one dwells on a situation that brings trouble, one gets stunted and does not move on. This overcoming of bad circumstances and the need to get through things no matter what one really thinks inside is demonstrated by Ernest Hemingway's, "In Another Country" where the main character needs to come to terms with his disability, his unfortunate trouble, and move on from that point in order to get ahead with his life. His perseverance and determination to survive is one that is felt by any human who want to surpass misfortunes, and can be seen in the line "The major came very regularly to the hospital. I do not think he ever missed a day." Regardless of what he was going through everyday and despite what he thought, he knew that only his determination would get him through the day, and that can be said about a lot of human's emotions.