Death is a concept that not many are able to openly face. It is a taboo that humans fear. It’s often pondered how death can be accept when the question of why humans are on this earth to begin with cannot be answered. Many people muddle through time trying to find purpose in their being. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet allows depression and anger to overcast him as he attempts to sort through the confusion that his father’s death has caused him. In David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle Edgar struggles to understand how the life of his father was stolen from him. The lack of discernment of death haunts Edgar and Hamlet. It is a demon that stalks each young man. Many say that once they understand their significance to living…show more content… The kitchen door would bang open and in his father would walk, red-faced and slapping his hands and exclaiming about some newly whelped pup. Childish, Edgar knew, but he didn’t care” (Wroblewski 162). Edgar is in limbo between apathy and empathy. He does not want to care but he cannot help himself. His reoccurring thoughts plague him as he tries to forget his father’s death but he is unable to. His obsessive thought process leads him to bigger questions. Hamlet and Edgar begins questioning the purpose of…show more content… A sense of elation. As if he’d somehow traveled back to the moment his father lay on the workshop floor and found the thing that could save him. Then, just as quickly, the sensation was gone. Something in him clamored for it again, at once. He ran to the barn and flailed heedlessly through the smoke and filled his arms with another pack of manila folders and all the papers and photographs inside them (Wroblewski 532). Edgar finally understands that the reason he was placed upon this earth was to salvage his father’s memory and allow it to live on. Hamlet makes the same discovery as he looks into Yorick’s empty skull eyes and pictures a man he used to know. He is looking through someone else’s eyes at that moment. Hamlet must truly avenge his father’s death for him and confirm his legacy lives on to have purpose as he