Assignment #3

Carlos D. Santiago Bonilla                                                                                         Sept 20,2011

English 3103-092                                                                                            Prof. Maria Badillo

The word oblivion in the devils dictionary means:

OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock. (Bierce)

                                                                                                                                                         The word oblivion in The American Heritage Des Dictionary and Thesaurus means:

Oblivion n. 1. The condition of being completely forgotten. 2. Forgetfulness (Berube 512)

I think I like more the definition of oblivion from the devils dictionary because it says: “The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.”(Bierce) because the definition that it has is one more poetical and gives a clear meaning at the same time and the basic definition it gives is a storage or a state of mind where the good intentions and all of our hard work is put to rest. When I first saw this definition I realize what my friends meant when they say “Welcome to oblivion” and they use that quote to refer to “El Colegio” because is where sometimes the good intentions and hard work sometimes does not pay off. The dictionary gave a definition that was not very understood since it says that is to be forgotten completely and the definition is not very specific at all. I choose the word oblivion because it gives me this feeling about the end of something but I have never searched it in a dictionary to check if I was right or not. The devils dictionary has the definitions that poet use on their poems and is a lot easier to understand word by word using the devils dictionary than rather start using a normal dictionary that the definitions are very straight and sometimes don’t fit on the poems meanings.

           

Work Cited

Ambrose Bierce. “Oblivion”. The Devils Dictionary. collected as a book in 1906.Yahoo. Web.                                                20 Sept. 2011

Berube, Margery S. The American Heritage Des Dictionary and Thesaurus.New York: Houghton                                                      Mifflin Company, 2005.Print.