The Power of Sympathy Essay -- Literary Analysis, William Hill Brown

In the novel, The force of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, there is a stock amid the opposing ideas of sentiment and cause. Characters in the text play to this underlying contrast and are affected by the polar ideas, ultimately resulting in the pickings of their own lives. These acts of suicide results from a detachment, or ignorance, of reason. When overcome by ruttish misery of sentiment, reason may, for however long a period, become missed or inferior to overbearing ideas of artificial thoughts directed toward ones finis. Bearing the suffer of ones own reason leads one to direct their actions by means of kitschy reasoning. The story of Ophelia, as told by Harriot, depicts the reasonable daughter of Shepard becoming anomic to the sentimental thoughts of suicide. While rationally stating her argument to her start out, she claims to be speaking with the objective to demonstrate the sincerity of her repentance (39) and regain the peace that was once within her home. S he recognized that she was wrong in her action, claiming that All...are not blest with the like triumph of resisting temptation (39) and she wished to display her sincerity with this confession. The transition from reasonable to melancholy occurs when her father rejects the notion of Ophelias confession, her sensibility became more exquisite (39) indicating that her sensibility came from the attempt to muddle things right with her family however, the attempt failed and she lost her rational thought. The emotional part of Ophelia became stronger as her repentance was rejected reason had failed her, her family was not influenced by her words. There is a drastic leap to conduct that bordered upon insaneness (40), a overleap of sane and rational thought th... ... reason. When the character remains reasonable, they face an home(a) pain, whether it be guilt, passion or confusion. Rather than suffer with this pain, the characters abandon reason and succumb to the overbearing strengt h of emotion. Ophelia, reasonable despite being unforgiven, loses her sanity to emotional melancholy and ends her spirit with poison. Harriot, who was just before owner her virtue, gave her life away to passion thinking that reason is unable to aid harm in patience. And Harrington, who makes no attempt to reclaim his clear mind, is driven to death because he fails to direct his thoughts elsewhere, even when urged to. The sentimental forces in this novel initiate a thought of suicide. The characters develop the thoughts individually, yet all give in to the powers of passion due to their lost sense of reason and overbearing sentimental thoughts.