Sunrise on the Veld

1. In “A Sunrise on the Veld, Doris Lessing uses contrast to get her theme across. In the beginning of the story, the boy is very excited about life. He exclaims how he is fifteen and that he had a long and wonderful life ahead of himself. Then, Lessing brings the dying buck into the story. The buck symbolizes how life comes to an end. Everyone dies at some point and sometimes it is not expected as the young bucks death was. The boy becomes very disturbed by confronting death face to face. The quick change of emotions from jubilant to disturbed shows the contrast of feeling alive and then realizing death. The contrast is used to describe the theme of how everyone has a dreadful realization of death, usually after confronting if face to face. 2. Nature is what keeps the boy from shooting the buck and putting it out of its misery. The boy realizes that if he had not come along, the buck would have to die the natural way. This realization makes the boy ask himself why he should interfere. It would have happened anyway and he cannot do it for all the dying animals in the forest. He decides to leave it alone and let nature take its course. Also, nature which caused the animal to die shows the boy death. He had not thought about dying before. He had only considered the rest of his life as completely happy. Nature opens the boy’s eyes to the dreadful reality. 3. The epiphany that the boy has is that everyone dies someday. It is a dark and dreary epiphany. He has not realized a good thing. What he realized changed his perspective on life. Everything goes black in a dreadful moment and never comes back. He thought his life would go on forever before. He was excited about being fifteen and having his whole life ahead of him. Then he realizes that no one can escape nature, that no one can escape death. 4. The buck symbolizes the reality of death. The buck dying shows the boy that life does come to an end and sometimes in the buck’s case; it ends sooner than it is supposed to. Lessing treats the buck very badly. The buck is already injured and then it is killed. It is almost like Lessing is trying to say that people are most vulnerable when they are already wounded. Then, Lessing vividly describes how the buck is completely devoured by the ants. Nothing is left but the bones. The cruel death of the buck shows that death is merciless. Everyone dies at some point and sometimes death can be violent. 7. A paradox that exists in the story is that the boy is running through the woods happy about life. He is fifteen and he has his whole life ahead of him. He is very excited. Then, he hears a sound. When he goes to look he sees the dying buck. Instead of celebrating life, the boy realizes about death and how everyone’s life comes to an end eventually. The paradox coveys Lessing’s theme about realizing death. It comes out of no where when you are high on life and least expecting it.