The Overcoming of Death

Author's Note~ This is a conflict resolution piece that I am trying to score a 9.5 or higher in and get a good thesis statement in introductions.

In the book A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, death was brought up in the begging of the story.  Johnny’s mother dies in a horrific accident at a baseball game and everyone there saw. The thought of overcoming death is such a scary thing at such a young age, and Owen and Johnny had to overcome the conflict person vs. self.

In the book Johnny had a great relationship with his mom as well as Owen.  Both characters had shown sign of sympathy within each other.  Owen and Johnny had some issues overcoming her death such as when they would see her room, or think about all the good times they had together.  It was emphasized that Johnny was able to take the death a lot better than Owen was.  Owen was having issues overcoming her death and not having her to accompany him. 

This conflict was resolved in a simple way.  About a month later Owen couldn’t stop thinking about her.  He visited her grave often and never seemed to get over her death.  When Johnny was cleaning out her room they had decided to take out her manikin that she used and saw every day.  Johnny’s step dad was going to take it to his apartment, but Owen insisted it should go to his room.

Ever since then Owen was able to accept the fact that she had died and he was able to have a part of her with him.  Owen should more of his old self and the reader could verify that through Owens’s attitude towards life.   In the book The Way we Fall, by Megan Crewe, Kaelyn had to overcome the death of her mom and lead the island back to a safe and healthy climate.  She and Owen used their own strength to persevere through death.

Each reader could tell that in both stories each character had to resolve the fact that someone important in their life had left them and they would need to survive without them.  Owen and John were able to resolve the death using each other to rely on.  Overcoming a person vs. self conflict can be hard usually involving fight or death with someone, but Owen and Johnny overcame that at a young age amazingly.