To Hell With Dying Theme

In the short story, “To Hell with Dying” by Alice Walker, the narrator is a young girl who reminisces about the “revivals” that took place at the house of her alcoholic and diabetic neighbor, Mr. Sweet. Many times throughout his life Mr. Sweet was near death and the narrator’s father would summon his children to surround him and remind him that he is loved and needed in an effort to bring him back from the brink of death. The central idea to this story is love can bring a reason to live when the feeling of defeat is overpowering; the people who surround one can support and uplift in times of sadness and help one to see that there is a reason to go on. The main conflict in this story is the internal struggles within Mr. Sweet who drinks because of the sadness he feels when he
Mr. Sweet’s episodes have a profound affect on the narrator and she spends her life trying to bring him back to life after each episode and worries that each one may be his last. Mr. Sweet was an ambitious boy who wanted to become a doctor or lawyer but realized that people of his color were better off doing less important jobs so he settled on becoming a fisherman and learned to play guitar well, which he often played for the narrator. The young girl remembers listening to Mr. Sweet make up songs while playing his guitar. Some of his songs were of a woman he was in love with that was not his wife, Miss Mary. The narrator learns through these songs that Mr. Sweet had to marry Miss Mary and together they had a son, Joe Lee, although “he was not sure that Joe Lee, her “baby,” was also his baby and sometimes he would cry and that was