?The Wreck of the Hesperus? and The Perfect Storm :: essays research papers

The more than Powerful Sea Disaster Story     Some of the most thought-provoking stories of today argon about peoples adventures at ocean and the thrill and treachery of living through its perilous storms and disasters. Two precise popular selections about the sea and its terrors are The better Storm by Sebastian Junger and The clash of the Hesperus by Henry Longfellow. Comparison between the deuce works determines that The Wreck of the Hesperus tells a more powerful sea-disaster explanation for several different reasons. The poem is more descriptive and suspenseful than The Perfect Storm, and it also plays on a very powerful tool to entice the hireers emotion. These key aspects combine to give the reader something material that allows them to relate to the story being told and affects them strongly. A common persons knowledge about sea disasters comes from what they have read in books and articles, and what they fool on TV and in movies. The average person does not construct to experience the fury of a hurricane while on a boat. In order to capture the audiences attention, consideration to details and brilliant descriptions are needed to paint a realistic picture in their minds. For this reason, the stories have to provide all of the intricate details. In The Perfect Storm, the story starts out with a radio call, not a dramatic flick that immediately foreshadows the possibility of danger. Rather than describing the storm and its fury, the only mention of the backcloth is of the visibility and the height of waves. However, in The Wreck of the Hesperus, the poem begins by stating there is a hurricane possible right away. The current weather conditions are pointed out to the reader as shown in the following quote.     Colder and louder blew the wind,          A gale from the Northeast,     The degree Celsius fell hissing in the brine,  &nb sp       And the billows frothed like yeast.     (Longfellow 125)The realistic adjectives paint a picture that the average person can relate to and understand. As shown from the backchat choice in The Perfect Storm, the poem is easily seen to evoke more powerful imagery. One quality a story needs to ingest in order to keep the reader eager and captivated to read is suspense. Both stories have elements of suspense, but utilize it in different ways. The Wreck of the Hesperus does an excellent job of foreshadowing, so one can auspicate the sequence of events that will happen.