Comparison Between "The School" by Donald Barthelme and "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff

Comparing and contrasting "The School" by Donald Barthelme and "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff.
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Introduction
"The School" by Donald Barthelme together with the "Bullet in my Brain" by Tobias Wolff are two exceptional fictional short stories that have developed storylines touching on the various aspects of life and particularly the early life of an individual as well as the final stages in the life of a person. Both the stories carefully bring out the theme of childhood times as well as the theme of death. The purpose of this paper is to review the similarities and differences between the two fiction stories. The paper shall review how the two writers illustrate the theme of death in the two fiction works.
Similarities
The two books share a similar theme of death and childhood. They both express the curiosity and uncertainty individuals have. Both the young and adults. "The school" by Donald Barthelme illustrates through a teacher by the name Edgar, the curiosity and uncertainty of young and old people about death and what really happens or would happen at the point of death or after death. The fact that the writer illustrates the teacher listing several deaths such as those of trees, animals, plants, kids along with mature individuals in the story might also be significant. By doing so, the writer might be emphasizing to his audience the ineluctability of death as well as the universality of death in the life of a human being. Additionally, Tobias Wolff in his book "Bullet in the Brain", further projects the theme of death and the uncertainty attached to it by demonstrating how abrupt Anders lost his life at a time he least expected. The critic gets i...