To Hell with Dying

The story’s first-person narrative allows the reader to access the narrator’s thoughts and emotions, evoking a greater sense of trust and empathy for the characters. The narrator, both as a child and an adult, recounts the relationship with her family friend, Mr. Sweet, someone with an alcohol addiction and who has bouts of depression that her child-self identifies as “deaths.” The narrator never discloses his “deaths” as depressive episodes, maintaining a sense of childlike mystery and mysticism. The narrator’s tone when retelling the Mr. Sweet’s history speaks to a love that extends outside of blood relations to expand kinship and strengthen community. The centrality of Mr. Sweet in the story challenges archetypical relationships between adults and children, emphasizing The Purity of Love in Youth. Despite Mr. Sweet’s drunkenness, the community loved him and on the numerous occasions he was in “death room” would collectivize to “revive” him.

The opening paragraphs describe Mr. Sweet’s struggles in life, such as living on a “neglected cotton farm” (Paragraph 1), succumbing to work as a fisherman, and his obligation to marry Mrs. Mary and raise a son he doubted was biologically his.