Life

3 Pages 729 Words

Life As A River

Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. A well-known line that was made famous by Tom Hanks in the movie Forrest Gump, this quote illustrates a metaphor that can easily be applied to life. Life, at times, can be just as unpredictable as a box or See’s candy nuts and chews. What lies beneath each decadent chocolate coating, as with each new day, is unpredictable. Another metaphor that is often used for life is a river. A fine example of this is seen in David James Duncan’s, “River Teeth: A Definition”. It is through his definition of “river teeth” that Duncan provides a strong metaphor for life that gives it new meaning.
A lot can be said about a single picture. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. But more than the words, a picture is full of memories. Whether it’s good times at a party, a beautiful sunset captured on vacation, or maybe just a family portrait from the 80’s; it’s all about the memories. Some might even say that memories are all that we have. To author David James Duncan, memories are like “river teeth”: time defying knots of experience that remain in us after most of our autobiographies are gone (4). It is impossible for anyone to remember all the events of their lives; there are simply too many. It is the memories that continually stand out in our minds and stay with us year after year that Duncan defines as “river teeth”. They are the good and bad memories: stories, emotions, feelings and experiences that make us human.
“River Teeth” is a story about the continuous cycle life. Of course each individual life contains a birth or beginning, a childhood, adulthood and at some point a death, but what Duncan tries to make evident in his definition or “river teeth” is that life is more than just these things. Duncan states that, “ And eternity itself possesses no beginning, middle or end” (5). With ...