Life is the most beautiful disaster. It is a dichotomous wrenching of mind and body, destiny and fate, knowledge and understanding, which by the very end—in those precious last moments, one is left only with the question… ‘Will there come a light, or just darkness'? If one wishes to contemplate fate anytime before the last moment the answers are not only unattainable but utterly devastating. What is so special about humanity? What kind of logic can one possibly proceed from to reinsure the eternal notion of an afterlife? And then, if humanity is indeed floating around for such a relatively short time (in the case of an individual) why even bother to search if one will only reveal that life is essentially meaningless.
[...] First to look toward the Preacher, an allusion to Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” This chapter if known as a futility of all endeavors, of course, a more specific way of saying it would be “futility of all earthly endeavors.” The Preacher in Ecclesiastes searches about for purity and love and all that utopian crap on earth, like the lord he does not find it. Rather than sit around complaining that the material existence is worthless the Preacher says to himself God has a purpose, I must trust it!' Rather than using the futility of material life to denounce all life the Preacher uses the material world to prepare, and bide his time believing essentially that happiness may be found in God alone. [...]
[...] The Preacher's usage is more in line with the vanity of today, namely, if one believes that earthly (material) achievement is happiness they are vain, or misunderstood. The speaker of the poem uses the comparison of Jesus' quest with that of the Preacher to promote a different message. The speaker's point reinforces Shelley's long standing belief in disbelief that life is utterly meaningless. To look only to the Preacher is to miss the speaker's message. It is possible that the speaker also means to disprove the almighty's plan by putting on display the fate of his only son. [...]
[...] Nature remains a representation of Satan; God's earth was pure and beautiful, after The Fall nature was uncomfortably cruel and shallow forever teaching us lessons, forever penalizing the errors of the chosen two. When looking to “Lift not the painted veil” this reading is problematic. If the veil is nature is it not supposed to be glorious? Nature and the innumerable material things of life exist to shelter humanity from the negative implications held in immaterial contemplations, questions of spiritual life. It will follow that the speaker in “Mont Blanc” must have lifted the veil, or understood nature in a fatalistic or atheistic sense. [...]
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