Critical Lens Essay

Sabah Lala
Dr. Postiglione
English 9H
29th November 2012 Success is to achieve something that we truly long for. “Sometimes failure is more beneficial than success.” Written by Darren Roberts. This is a very inspiring quote for all species of mankind. I agree rightfully with this quote as it states that even sometimes there are ups and downs, falls and disruptions in life, but those problems make us even stronger and prevent us from making the same mistake and make us more successful in life. Although, if losing things sometimes make us closer to something we want, we must make a go for it. As In Homers’, The Odyssey, and Nancy’s’, The House of The Scorpion, the main characters deal with personal loss and face many hardships, but finally reach to their own respected homes and families, safe and soundly. In Homers’, The Odyssey, the main character faces many hardships, but ultimately is successful by meeting and re-uniting with his loved ones. The idea which relates the quote with this book is that in The Odyssey, Odysseus faces tons of trials and tribulations as well as tough challenges like the time when he stayed patiently in Calypso, the enchantress’s isolated island for 7 years, but shortly after that long term patience he received help and reached home safely to his family and friends, and got his kingdom back. Also, when he lost 6 of his best men while dealing with the monstrous 6- headed sea monster of gray rock Scylla, but that lead him a step ahead to reach home, to his loved ones and re-unite with them, which Odysseus longed to do for over 20 years and this was his success. As the quote explains that you have to experience failure in order to gain success, is what exactly happens to Odysseus. The best literally element that relates Homers’, The Odyssey, is conflict. Conflict comes of two types- external and internal. We are talking about external conflict meaning the struggle between two or more characters. Odysseus and his men had a terrible fight with Cyclops, the one-eyed giant who kept eating Odysseus’ men one by one and trapped them in a cave. Though this resulted in a huge loss of his men, but it ultimately results in the stepping stone to his success, which is his longing for reaching his homeland, Ithaca and re-unite with his family and friends and once more become the worthy king of Ithaca, as is the understanding of the quote. As Odysseus faced many problems but inherited success, Nancy’s’, The House of the Scorpion, the main character too reached his loved ones after losing his friend and leaving behind hatred. Another piece of literature is Nancy’, The House of the Scorpion, the main character Matt, is a clone, who faces many problems but is successful in living peacefully with his loved ones after a long period of hatred. Matt was the 8th clone of El patron(a famous man, whose age was 90). He used to bring up the clones and transplant their heart to himself as soon as they turned 13, so that he could live life longer. Everyone hated Matt as he was born of a cow, except for his caretaker, Celia and his best friend, eventually lover, Maria. When the time came of Matt to give away his heart, he didn’t want to, and ran far away in the woods. There he was trapped by some men, who kept children for cleaning foul smelling factories. He made many new friends there. As Matt’s character is, that he was witty, and brave enough to do anything, he devised a plan to get out and took 3 of his best friends as well. He and one of his friend, Chacho, got caught and were thrown in a bunch a whale bones, where Chacho dies. He eventually faced many problems but these all hardships and losses leaded him to the golden key of his success, which was to reach home to Celia and Maria, and get them to stay in Rome, a peaceful place, and start their lives afresh. His strong longing made him reach home, to Belmont, and was successful in taking them to Rome. His bravery and wittiness lead him to his success, and he started his life afresh with Maria and Celia, and lived a peaceful life, away from the life filled with hatred and bloodshed. In both pieces of literature, the main characters face a lot of problems. In Homers’, The Odyssey, Odysseus faces tons of hardships but is successful in re-uniting with his family as well as he got his kingdom of Ithaca back. In Nancy’s, The House of the Scorpion, Matt too faced many trials but eventually was successful in starting his life afresh and living peacefully with Maria and Celia. Both lost companions, but as stated in the introduction, if losing things brings us the golden key to our own successes, we should never ever leave that opportunity as opportunities once gone are gone forever.