Grace Lee Mr Gutfreund ENG 4U1-01 15 October 2013

Dying a dignified death

An existentialist believes that existence comes before essence. They are prepared to make all their choices and suffer from their actions. One of the themes that an existentialist portrays is freedom of choice. Freedom of choice is in everyones life even if the outcome is good or bad. The life of the protagonist from the short story The Wall and from the movie Stranger Than Fiction are both involved in a situation where a near death experience plays a role. The person that suffers more in this situation is Harold Crick in Stranger Than Fiction. Both characters accept their death later in the text but Harold takes a longer time. From these protagonists situation, they can be either determined as an existentialist or not.

In both texts, the protagonists have a near death experience. They are both in a position where death would have been the outcome but later on discovers that they are no longer in the situation. In Stranger Than Fiction, Harold an IRS auditor who was living an ordinary but slightly odd life did not know what the meaning of his life was until one day it started being narrated. He began to hear a voice that would narrate what he was doing every moment such as, what his morning routines were and how many steps he took to cross the street and get to the bus stop. He was

unable to communicate with the female voice therefore was only able to listen to her and get frustrated. Harold always wore a stopwatch, which kept his life organized. The day that his stopwatch stopped functioning was when he found out this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death (Forster, Stranger Than Fiction). After hearing that narration, Harold Crick became worried and decided to seek help. He then meets Julius Hilbert, a literature professor who helps him discover who the voice of the narrator is. Crick discovers that he is the main character of the book, the narrator Karen Eiffel, is writing. Karen, an author was is struggling from writers block had an assistant who pondered around with her to help find the picture-perfect ending of Harolds imminent death. Later on, when Karen discovers the perfect way to kill Harold, she meets her protagonist in the real world. By her discovering that her characters were actual human beings, she did not want to finish the ending of her novel with the tragic death of Harold. From Karen twisting the ending of the story, Harold was able to live and no longer had to fear death.

Like Harold Crick, Pablo Ibbietas life was also about to end with him being killed. Pablo the protagonist of the short story The Wall was sentenced to death in prison for a reason he was unclear of at the beginning. While in prison, Pablo met two other males, Tom and Juan, who were also there to get executed. Unlike Harold, Pablo did not show any emotions on how he felt about dying and showed no fear. He did not show fear because it would not have made the situation better. Also, Pablo said, I want to die decently (Sartre 294) meaning that he wanted to die a

signified death. He did not care that he was going to get executed and did nothing to prevent it either. He did nothing to prevent his death because he was sure that they were all going to be executed. Pablo was given a chance to leave prison if he told the officers where Ramon Gris, a comrade, was hiding but did nothing with the offer. Pablo knew Ramon Gris was hiding in his cousins house, about two miles outside the city but insisted he didnt know anything. Pablo lied to the officers because he felt that Ramon would be more useful to the Spanish than him. Since he chose to lie, he had to pay the consequences of his actions.

Harold and Pablo both accept that their life will soon come to an end but Harold Crick has a little bit more trouble coping with this information. It is harder for Harold because all these events were randomly occurring in his life. He is unsure of where the voice is coming from and why he is he only one able to hear it out of everyone. Through this, he became very paranoid. When Harold finally met Karen Eiffel, he found out that she almost finished her story with his death as the ending. She passed her copy of the story for him to read but he refused to read it right away. Professor Hilbert read the story first and later told Harold that he had to die for the story to have an incredible ending. Upon hearing that, Harold decided to read the story and agreed with Professor Hilbert. With him agreeing with Professor Hilbert, it meant that he accepted that he was soon going to die. Knowing this, Harold went out and started a new life, experiencing what he has never done. Harold learned how to play the guitar and also fell in love with Ana the women he was auditing. This showed that Harold didnt want to feel like himself and get away from his daily

routines. He wanted to do things he has never done before because of his daily schedules that he had everyday. Harold also had trouble after the stopwatch stopped working because it changed everything he has been doing.

Like Harold, Pablo later on cooperates with the officers right before his execution by giving them false information saying, hes hiding in the cemetery(Sartre 298). Ironically, the location Pablo told the officers happened to be where Ramon Gris was hiding. With Ramon Gris being caught, Pablo was set free and was able to leave prison without being executed. Pablo is luckier compared to Harold because his life did not change while going through the process. Knowing that he was going to die, Pablo felt no pity because he knew what the outcome was going to be. He didnt care that he was no longer able to see Concha, his girlfriend or even stay alive. Compared to Harold, Harold was a brave man who took chances to prevent his death from occurring. He begged Karen to write an alternate ending so that he didnt have to die. Pablo on the other hand decided to play a joke even though he had an opportunity to be set free. This showed that Harold was the character that suffered more because he didnt have a chance to make any selfdecisions in order to save his life.

In The Wall, some of the themes that make Pablo an existentialist are, freedom of choice, responsibility, and despair. These existential themes apply to Pablo more than Harold. Freedom of choice applies to Pablo more because his life was going to be lived by how he chose to live it. There was no one there to stop him

from making the decisions that he wanted to make. Responsibility plays a role in Pablos life because his life wasnt planned for him. If they do not plan everything out, it may end up messing up with their future, which in this case is death for Pablo. Despair plays a role in Pablo because he lost hope right when he entered prison. He found out he was brought to prison later on because of a secret he was keeping but that was his fault. This fault has led him going to prison to get executed.

Unlike Pablo, Harold did not have these themes in his life. He did not have responsibility is his life because everything he did was based on what Karen Eiffel was writing in her new novel. Freedom of choice was a small part of Harolds life because there was nothing to choose from. He did not have the choice of living but instead he had the choice of how to make things better while he was still alive. As stated before, he learned how to play the guitar and met Ana. Despair was a part of his life because he lost hope when he heard Professor Hilbert say that he needed to die in order for Karen to not suffer from writers block. A difference between these two texts is that unlike Harold, Ramon Gris had the choice of living right from the beginning of the text when four fellows were questioning him. If he had confessed to knowing where Ramon was, he would not have gone through too much trouble. Even though Pablo had the freedom of choice, he did not use it wisely therefore had to suffer the consequences of his actions. Harold once again did not need to suffer these consequences because he was an innocent man who happened to be unfortunate. This leads to Harolds life being a tragic story.

To conclude the comparison between Harold Crick and Pablo Ibbieta, Harold Crick was the protagonist that suffered more. He suffered a situation of being chosen to die when he was innocent, didnt have a self-choice to prevent the situation from occurring and had to deal with the choices that were given to him. Harold Crick had a harder time dealing with the end result compared to Pablo Ibbieta because of all the events that occurred while going through this process of wondering if he was going to die or not.