In Walt Whitman’s morbidly enticing poem, “This Compost”, the speaker begins the poem by stating his disbelief and skepticism over nature’s unwavering ability to expel life from properties riddled in death. Looking back at the context of the piece, one can see that this poem was written in a time when people inferred that places on Earth where it was common knowledge that death bodies had been buried underground, were contaminated with whatever ailments had caused the deaths in the first place and, consequently, could possibly be contracted by any living person who came in contact with the soil. Therefore, it necessarily follows that the first stanza is driven by the fear of contagious corruption from the death-infested ground. In the first stanza, Whitman’s internalization over the …show more content…
Therefore, in the poem, despite the speaker’s anxiety over the life/death paradox, he realizes that death is profoundly important and sees death not through the lens of all its negative connotations but rather as a means to fascinating creation.

By contrast, in the short story, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the death of Beatrice Rappaccini at the end of the story is distinctly due to the effects of a mysterious potion and, metaphorically, represents the defeat of mankind as a result of scientific engineering. The story begins with Giovanni Guasconti who, in the hopes of pursuing an education from the University of Padua, finds himself staying at the home of Dr. Rappaccini, a famous doctor known for, “[distilling]...plants into medicines,” (977). Upon his arrival, Giovanni is quick to notice how meticulous the doctor is in tending for his garden and how his daughter, Beatrice, also holds a particular interest in the maintenance of her father’s experiments. When Giovanni first sees