Just Die Already!

Death and ageing are some of the darkest and most important parts of life. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” by Kurt Vonnegut and “After A Greek Proverb”, a poem by A.E. Stallings, both show a similar theme of death and ageing. Vonnegut’s short story is about a large family who live together in a small apartment in the distant future. This family has more problems than the Kardashians, and a lot of their issues are because of a futuristic anti ageing drug which they all take. Gramps, the oldest member of the family, takes this botox-on-steroids so often that he is over 150 years old! Gramps is the Donald Trump of the incredibly cramped apartment; if anyone in the family ever tries to question his actions, they're fired! Well, they aren’t really fired, they're just eliminated from Grampa's will, which has the potential to change the life of anyone in the family. The behavior of each family member towards Gramps determines what he or she will receive from the will. The climax of the story occurs Gramps removes his straggling family from the apartment through arraigning their arrest. Gramps then is seen preparing to purchase and even more effective form of the anti-ageing stuff, continuing his pursuit of everlasting life. Throughout the story, the author’s thoughts regarding death and ageing are pretty clear. The family depicted in the story are seen as being desperate for Gramps to go. Through this conflict the author is satirizing death itself, which is in reality always tragic for family members who are affected by it. He is also expressing his thoughts regarding the inevitably of ageing, and how he believes it to be a natural part of life. In the society of “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”, due to the huge amount of old people overpopulation has reached uncontrollable levels, and taxes are at record high levels due to pensions. Additionally many once common resources have completely disappeared. As one of the family members, Em, muses, ““If we just had a car, like the folks used to in the old days, “we could go for a drive, and get away from people for a little while. Gee—if those weren’t the days!” (Vonnegut 224) A.E Stallings has similar views on death and growing old to Vonnegut. In “After a Greek Proverb”, Stallings makes many bold statements  about the fact that life is temporary, encouraging the reader to make more of an effort to live in the moment. She exemplifies this by ending multiple stanzas in her poem with, “Nothing is more permanent than the temporary.” (Stallings 5) Overall, the themes of death and ageing outlined by A.E Stallings in her poem “After a Greek Proverb” do a great job of mirroring those of Kurt Vonnegut in “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”. Both writers believe that life has an end and is a temporary process that is meant to end with natural occurrence of death.




Vonnegut's overcrowded world may look something like the above concept design.