Uncertainties In Braveheart

The Mystery of Life and Death In the 1995 movie Braveheart, William Wallace presents life 's uncertainties and how we should live each day when he affirms, “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.” Sharon Olds 's poem, “Summer Solstice, New York City,” is an ideal representation of this quotation and the questions that we have about how to live our day-to-day lives. This brief poem is about a man who is standing on a rooftop contemplating suicide and the New York City policemen who are attempting to save his life. At first, a brief summary is all that the reader sees in the story, but upon deeper analysis, the fragility of life shines through. With each detail, or lack thereof, Olds reveals her views on the uncertainties of this life. The Summer Solstice is known as the longest day of the year, and in placing the setting on the Summer Solstice, Olds presents the reader with a lengthy period of time. In the first line, when Olds says that “he could not stand it” (1) anymore, it presents the concept of a long day, or in the case of the man, a long life and a long time coming. We do not know what has been happening in the man 's life, but whatever it is has led him to desire to commit suicide. The man on the rooftop 's identity
Was he actually suicidal? Did the policemen convince him not to take his own life? We are never told the reasons for the man 's not jumping from the building; we only know that “everything stopped as his body jerked and he stepped down from the parapet and went toward them” (27-29). We are presented with so few details so that we are able to compare the actions of the man to our own previous experiences or actions. The man 's actions were just as possible as those which he did not take. The outcome could have been different, and the purpose of the story would remain the same. Life is uncertain, and the line between life and death is extremely