The book, The Great Divorce, was written in 1945 by C.S. Lewis. Lewis wrote the book as a response to William Blake’s book, Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In many ways, it is a refutation of Blake’s book; there is no marriage of heaven and hell. The book begins in a sad, dark, desolate place. The reader is led to believe that this place is hell. The narrator takes the reader throughout the streets of this peculiar place. Eventually, he stumbles upon a bus station, along with many other passengers. There is a long line of people waiting, so he falls in line with the rest of them. It becomes apparent very quickly that these people are not the friendliest of people. They are annoyed with each other at the slightest disturbance,…
Physically all humans are created equally from head to toe but mentally and internally some humans are granted with the natural lottery. “Since we cannot undo the inequalities of the natural lottery, John Rawls writes, we must find a way to address the differences in the rewards that result from them” (Arora 88). Agreeing with this quote, people with natural gifts receive easier rewards then people who actually have to work for their rewards. With that being said, the people with natural gifts take their rewards for granted unlike the people who appreciate their rewards through hard work. For example, celebrities just get stuff handed to them easier than a teacher who works hard too and gets paid little. When I played softball, I wasn’t as good as the others and they would always hit a home run so they didn’t really value it however for me having to practice hitting everyday just to make it on first…
The short Essay, An Experiment in Criticism, by C.S. Lewis brings to light many new perspectives to how people read and experience literature. Throughout the essay Lewis works to give the message that; how good a book is doesn’t depend on the quality of writing but on the reader. He begins by defining two types of readers- the “literary” and the “non-literary”- which he uses through the rest of his essay to categorize different traits for treating literature.…
The salty wind sent Alice Clark’s hair rushing behind her as the boat pulled closer to the dock of the small land mass only minutes away. From her standing position leaning over the rail, she could see the figures of the few people who inhabited the remote place just off of the coast of Nova Scotia. It seemed they had all shown up to see the tourists getting off of the ferry—the visitors of the day.…
Everyman is considered as the greatest medieval morality play written by an anonymous author. Because of its religious content and moral message, poets assumed that a priest wrote it. The author of this masterpiece made it allegorical, which means that each figure represents abstract characteristics.…
While reading The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, I encountered a few questions concerning his view on Ethical Innovation and the dilemma conditioners face. It was a difficult book with many ideas that didn’t come completely clear to me at times.…
The Invisible Man is about a young man who wanted to escape the racial division between whites and blacks in the early 20th century. The narrator never gave his own names because he is unknown and mysterious to the reader, and this emphasize on his invisibleness on society. The narrator had a simple dream of fitting in and rising above social limits and that he is able to change himself and others to accept each other. However, the narrator’s adventure to find himself and to come to realization that he is basically nothing and invisible to the world because of the color of his skin. The book, Invisible Man, is trying to teach the reader about the social division by race in the 20th century and how lives of blacks were depicted at the time.…
The assertions made by Lewis Lapham’s Money and Class in America distinguishes the meaning of success and the requirements for respect from Americans to that of other strong societies. In his essay he defends that Americans show respect for those with a high economic status while other nations feel art and intellect are warrant for respect. With this, he agrees with Henry Adams that Americans are greatly materialistic in the sense that they try to find “success” in wealth because they have been “deflected by the pursuit of money”. Though the idea that Americans favor and respect a high economic status is true, Lapham’s claim that they do so because they are socially forced to is not accurate because they still have the ability to make a choice.…
“Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.” -Albert Camus…
Malcolm Gladwel Analyses in his latest book Outliers , the circumstances that made some people successful . He shows another aspect of their self-made rise to success. Gladwell gives the definition of an outlier as an unusual person ‘classed differently from a main or related body’ (2008:3), in other words out of the ordinary. He argues that success is not in any case a matter of talent, but of practice, of social status, culture, and of being in the right place at the right time.…
Malcolm Gladwell emphasizes many characteristics on what being an outlier is. The most important is hard work, “... [for] if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires”(151). Without hard work, nothing will ever be accomplishable. Tonina Hoang, a McDonald’s franchisee, writes, “I work hard to ensure that they stay motivated and develop their careers…” Nothing ever comes without having to work for it. Everyone who is famous, or a doctor, or a lawyer has gotten through the baby steps and have overcome many obstacles to reach where they are now. Gladwell states that, “No one who can rise before the dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich”(137), further emphasizing that success is achievable if hard work is put in.…
An Outlier is someone who stands out in a group due to their mastery of a certain skill and because of that they are successful. According to Gladwell not anyone can become successful; it takes the right circumstances and opportunities. Human’s capability seems limitless, and if we put in the time and hard work we can achieve our goals. We as a society love to think that a person may become successful and that we all have the same opportunities and chance of succeeding if we just work hard enough. According to Malcom Gladwell, the author of the book Outlier’s these common beliefs are incorrect and are not the means of a person becoming successful. The main theme throughout Gladwell’s Outlier’s is that successful people aren’t born they’re a product of their own upbringing. Gladwell states that “Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.” (155). This single quote explains all of the outliers at once. In every case that Gladwell tells us about, those who flourished were provided with certain circumstances that allowed them to become an outlier or master of their respective craft. Gladwell argues that in order to become successful you have to have the right circumstances around you such as your family, birthplace, or even when you were born. That is what makes the outliers different then all others; they were provided with some sort of luck or circumstance that gave them the upper hand and opportunity to master their skills. “The outliers in a particular field reached their lofty status through a combination of ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage.” (37)…
Browning depicts the men in his case study as ordinary middle aged men who choose not to commit murder of Jewish men, women, and children as compared to Ordinary Men or Ideological Soldiers, it is clearly stated that men of Police Battalion 310 not only believed Jews as subhuman enemies but as a threat to Germany. The majority of PB 310 consisted of younger men who were consistently exposed to the political and economic turmoil of Germany. These men likely joined Hitler Youth and were exposed to Nazi propaganda through their school education. As stated on pages 49-50, most of these young soldiers were active party members. It also showed figures for men born between 1905-1912 as more susceptible to Nazi ideology.…
Everyone is put on this earth with a different circumstance, or opportunities. Everyone has challenges they go through throughout life. We all deal with our problems and obstacles differently. Everyone has the chance to succeed. Not everyone has the same opportunity to, but everyone has the chance to. People have different lives and situations. Some are people are born with all the money they could ever need, and others work all day, just to buy food for their family. Whether you have been working since you were a child, or whether you don’t work until you finish college, you have an opportunity to succeed.…
The classic American success story: a person is born to nothing, has an idea, and, by sheer power of their own will and determination, makes it big--or so it would seem. These are the stories, the stories of billionaires, professional athletes, lawyers, and scientists, that Malcolm Gladwell examines in his 2008 book, Outliers: Stories of Success. He delves deep into the stories of successful people, finding that they are rarely self-made. He counters the well-loved “rags to riches” stories that success is a product of great opportunities, cultural legacy, and a bit of luck.…