Analyzing Oliver Wendell's 'The Chambered Nautilus'
“The Chambered Nautilus”
In "The Chambered Nautilus" by Oliver Wendell the snail in the shell is growing up just like man does, birth to death. Many relate more to this animal than most people realize. A man grows out of clothes, socks, and shoes, much like they gradually grow out of the chambers of their shell. They move through the chambers of their shell after they have grown and are no longer comfortable in the space that now seems so small. Men like snails grow uncomfortable in their own shells. A man begins to like different things in life in separate stages of growth. As a child, they play with toys, eat, and sleep pretty much the whole day, as they grow up they begin to take responsibility for their own actions, going to school, and realizing there is more to life than just minor activities.
Once man has become an adult they are set on raising a family, making a living, and retirement. During the first stages of life they are free and everything seems fresh, but as they grow they lose their youth, their ability to do many of the activities they were once able to, and they grow closer to the reality of death. Men simply shrug off the …show more content…
The answer is to grow, and not to go backwards. Ones goal should be to make each year better and more dignified than the previous. Man should grow out from a weak past, creating new and better years, continuing to create more precious years, and dying, just as the nautilus shell grew into bigger and bigger chambers until one day the shell was left on the beach. The nautilus is used to stress that its example of a "heavenly message"(line 22, 311) of how people should grow and develop through their own lives. Holmes emphasizes the idea that humans expand their horizons until they achieve the spiritual freedom of heaven or the afterlife. If man does not accept this and try to live a virtuous life and live everyday to the fullest than what is the point in
In "The Chambered Nautilus" by Oliver Wendell the snail in the shell is growing up just like man does, birth to death. Many relate more to this animal than most people realize. A man grows out of clothes, socks, and shoes, much like they gradually grow out of the chambers of their shell. They move through the chambers of their shell after they have grown and are no longer comfortable in the space that now seems so small. Men like snails grow uncomfortable in their own shells. A man begins to like different things in life in separate stages of growth. As a child, they play with toys, eat, and sleep pretty much the whole day, as they grow up they begin to take responsibility for their own actions, going to school, and realizing there is more to life than just minor activities.
Once man has become an adult they are set on raising a family, making a living, and retirement. During the first stages of life they are free and everything seems fresh, but as they grow they lose their youth, their ability to do many of the activities they were once able to, and they grow closer to the reality of death. Men simply shrug off the …show more content…
The answer is to grow, and not to go backwards. Ones goal should be to make each year better and more dignified than the previous. Man should grow out from a weak past, creating new and better years, continuing to create more precious years, and dying, just as the nautilus shell grew into bigger and bigger chambers until one day the shell was left on the beach. The nautilus is used to stress that its example of a "heavenly message"(line 22, 311) of how people should grow and develop through their own lives. Holmes emphasizes the idea that humans expand their horizons until they achieve the spiritual freedom of heaven or the afterlife. If man does not accept this and try to live a virtuous life and live everyday to the fullest than what is the point in