Nathaniel Hawthorne's David Swan: An Analysis of Binary Opposites

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David Swan is a story of a young man who is on his way to Boston and while waiting for the coach, he falls asleep. While he is sleeping, three major things happen which could have changed his life from then on.

First, a young couple passes by him and sees him. The lady wants to take him with them and give him fortune but the gentleman is in doubt because they do not know him. So they just decide to leave him there alone and asleep. It happens that the couple are wealthy and can offer him some fortune, but he misses it because he is asleep.

After the couple, a fair young maiden comes to his way and marvels at his youthful beauty. It also happens that the maiden's father is looking for a young man like David, if only David is able to introduce himself to the maiden, he could have been her father's clerk, another fortunes that he misses.

After the girl leaves, a group of bandits come to him and poses threat to kill him if he wakes up as they are taking some of his possessions. The men succeeds in taking David's things and fortunately, David does not wake up so he does not end up dead in the story.

As the men leave, a coach passes by and David awakes. He got into the coach with all his hopes of Boston in him, never knowing everything that happens while he is asleep.

Analysis:

Binary opposites or the opposing forces of nature can be seen in this story and they help in the development of the meaning of the story. These are some of the following:

Good - Bad. We can see this in the vicissitudes that happened while David was asleep. Two of the three vicissitudes were good, fortune and love and the other one is death, obviously the bad one. This implies that both good and bad chances are equally forgotten and/or taken for granted we journey through life.

Ignorance - Awareness. David was ignorant about all the things that happened to him while he was asleep and had no clue even after he woke up. All those people who passed by him were aware that he is asleep and does not sense anything nor will remember anything after he wakes up. These binary opposites tell us that all the chances coming to us are aware about us, yet we are not aware about them. These chances only wait for our response, if we do take, reject or ignore them, let alone not notice them

Chance - Choice. David chose to rest and later on fell asleep, thus missing several chances of his life which could have determined his final outcome. Life is both a matter of choice and chance. All these chances that come to us are all products of our choices. We make a choice, then just like dominoes, chain of chances appear to us.

These are just few of binary opposites which are always true in our life. They always play a major role, whether we are asleep or awake.

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At Home: A Short History of Private Life

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Book Review: At Home - A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Bryson makes his writings so very interesting due to the very fact that he infuses his own imagination, satire and humour into it. His study of human nature and human history are revealed in a tour of his own home, a remarkable way to discuss history, but he somehow pulls it off.

Although he is not familiar about the rector who built his home in the mid 19th century, he then goes on to tell us about some religious people he does know of. The church was originally meant and designed for the upper class he goes on to say, it was not originally invented for studying religion.

Bryson is from the states but has lived in England for a while and gives the readers an inside account of England as he see's it. The history of the 18th century amateur mathematician is revealed. A man named Reverend Bayes whose theorem had no practical use whatsoever until many, many years later when the computer was invented! This theorem is now used thought-out the worlds most complex technology systems, like the stock market and advanced computational tools.

Readers who are already familiar with Bryson's works realizes that although he is taking us on a tour of his home, he manages to explain the historic world at the same time.

He uses examples to describe things, one such example is the humble salt and peper pots on your dinner table, these he goes on to explain are there only because many people have brutally died.

If you enjoy astounding facts and amusing anecdotes then Bill Bryson's witty and fluent book At Home, A Short History of Private Life is for you.

If you would like to read a chapter of this witty book click here.

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