Author's Note - I don't feel as good about this piece as I think I should. I think the main reason is because I don't produce as good of writing when I have a prompt. I think that the reason that we write is because we want to and not because we are forced to. I just don't feel as good about writing about something that is in a prompt because I feel more confined to the limits of the prompt rather than opening up to new ideas that just flow. I think even people that don't think they have this, it is still there. Again this isn't a piece that I'm necessarily proud of. Please leave comments.
With desire comes temptation, and with temptation comes desire. There’s so much temptation in the world. Every day life tempts you to do something that you normally wouldn’t do or maybe something that you do every day, but never see the wrong in it because the temptation is too strong that you get sucked into its death grip. Desire also plays hand in hand. When you desire something, you are tempted more to do something along those desired line. When we get sucked into desire, we lead a world of temptation and when there is temptation, it becomes a mechanic that eventually becomes a desire. The reality of it is, there is temptation, and there is desire, but them being intertwined, is more than we can handle.
In the Story “The Hundredth Dove”, Jane Yolen is writing in the ironic mode. Noticing that Jane is a liberal democrat and got her doctorate in politics and is a contemporary author, there could be a tie between these two things and the book. At the time when this book was being written (1977), Jimmy Carter, a democrat, was president. In the years before when she first started the book, the presidential election was coming. This could be at the beginning of the book with the first servings and the background information. At the end, when he snaps the bird or rather the queen’s neck, the queen could represent the republicans loosing in this presidential race. The king could then represent the democrats and there could also be a tie in Jane Yolen to be Hugh because of her tie to the democrats. With her political background, she could be making a pun with this story about the presidential election.
Temptation and desire are part of everyday life. With the desire to serve his king, Hugh, a fowler of England who gave birds to his king, became too much for him to handle. The desire turned into a resource for the king because with Hugh’s desire to serve his king well so high, the king could tempt him into anything he wanted him to do. Temptation for Hugh intertwined with desire and became a force of unstoppable need. When Hugh goes into the forest and kills all one hundred birds, he is tempted by the desire that he has to serve his king that he does not realize what he is actually doing a beautiful Earth. He is so set on serving his king, that he secludes himself from everything including reality.
With desire as the sole purpose of a man, there is a very gruesome feat that you must accomplish to stay out of its grasps. Desire for one thing, takes the will to do anything else right out of you. This happens to Hugh. When Hugh has so much desire to serve his king and serve him well, everything else in his life is tossed in the trash. He does nothing else but serve his king. He sat in the forest for hours and hours on end waiting for the doves to come in a feed. There is no will in your body to do anything else when a desire is strong enough to take apart your life, and feed on it as if it is a good for nothing life. Hugh has slipped away from reality, and secluded himself from everything because of his desire. It put him in a death grip and never let go. With so much desire, there is nothing that can deter us from that trail that we are on. Desire takes us and puts us into a different world where nothing is reality, but only a nightmare.
With temptation lurking around every corner, there is a feeling of stress and disbelief. The reality of it all is that temptation is always around us. Some stay vigilant, while others are left to stray and are less insightful than any that we know, and wander off the beaten path. With temptation every day, we look around and see a world of it. Everywhere we turn there is some sort of temptation somewhere. The world is a world of temptation. Hugh has not yet entered into this vivid thought and has discarded the idea that the world is a world of despair at times. He acts as if there is nothing wrong. Nothing that is bad about staying vigilant to his king. Rather than straying off to the path of goodness and wisdom, he stays on the wealthier path where everything that he wants and every wish that he has is granter. Rather than leaving the corrupt path and realizing what her really wants, is only a step away.
When temptation and desire hit home, they cannot be stopped. There’s no stepping away from this death grip and no ending to it. It just keeps coming. We all have delicate lives and temptation and desire just rip through the skin and tear right into the soul and you lose your will to live and be free. You lose your grip and slip right away from reality. It is an unforgiving path and Hugh has stepped onto one, went to the other, and is slowly moving on the path with both of them and is losing his communication with reality.
