Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, Bussey explores William Saroyan's use of contrast in his short story and how this contrast provided encouragement for his depression-era readers.

From the first sentence of "Resurrection of a Life" to the last, William Saroyan incorporates numerous contrasting images, ideas, and feelings. The story opens with the narrator stating:

Everything begins with inhale and exhale, and never ends, moment after moment, yourself inhaling, and exhaling, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, moving, sleeping, waking, day after day and year after year, until it is now, this moment, the moment of your being, the last moment, which is saddest and most glorious.

This opening tells the reader that the story will be dynamic in its presentation of opposites, and that this presentation...