These two are contrasts of each other because one is a person who is already living, in the afterlife, with Death and goes looking through her old life; the other is a man running from his old life and his fear of Death. Both were written during times of war, so the idea that death is either the friend or the enemy would be share among many people during the time. Some people during war may be willing to walk with death, and others may want to keep death away from them. Both ways a journey is taken and Death is meet eventually whether…
In your last paper you were asked to consider the possible motivation behind Chris McCandless's decision to abandon conventional knowledge. For this paper we are going to examine the excerpt from Krakauer's book in a new light-in relation to Malcolm Gladwell's ideas. In his chapter, "The Power of Context," Malcolm Gladwell argues for another way to understand one's relation to "meaning" and knowledge. While Gladwell looks at the epidemic of crime in New York City in the mid 1980s and the dramatic drop in crime rates a decade later and Jon Krakauer ruminates on a young man's "strange spiritual quest" (Krakauer 420) into the Alaskan wilderness, both authors contemplate the nature of "character". One seemingly…
James Keenan uses Albert Speer as a modern example of the sin that God detests: consciously avoiding to love others. In contrast to Hitler, who was at the time seen as an altogether vessel of hate and discrimination, Speer didn't embody those belief systems. Instead, Speer was a simple but famed German architect who was only "interested in his architectural work, his career, and his family" (Keenan 54). Seeing that Speer wasn't driven by the same prejudice that Hitler carried, doesn't that make Speer technically more innocent than Hitler? In a way, yes. However, with that innocence comes the expectation not neglect an opportunity to assist those who need help. This wasn't the case with Speer, who helped to bolster Hitler's influence in Europe…
The racist and fascist foundation of Nazism has often been attributed to the writings of Nietzsche. In actuality, however, not only did Nietzsche not espouse such ideas, but also he also expressly opposed them. The blatant racism, oppression, and mass mentality of the Nazi regime are incompatible with Nietzsche's writings. Conceptually, it is difficult to fathom how Hitler managed to warp Nietzsche's ideas and writings to fuel his own totalitarian Nazi agenda. Although Nietzsche's writings did influence Hitler, it was only through misinterpretation and manipulation that Hitler came to believe that Nietzsche held pro-Nazi beliefs and promoted his works as the philosophical underpinning of the Third Reich.…
Throughout history every society has had their own heroes of myth and legend; from the Greek heroes of Hercules and Achilles, to the Medieval English heroes King Arthur and Lancelot, and the Early American heroes of Paul Bunyan and Daniel Boone, there have always been and there will always be heroes. Heroes are pillars of a societies values, what a society finds important is what will be found in the overall makeup of the heroes themselves. In today’s society, we have two heroes of comic book legend that stand above all others—Batman and Spider-Man.…
After discussing Nietzsche in class, I could not help but draw connections between his philosophies and the movie Groundhog’s Day. The first Nietzchean concept seen in the film is the idea of the eternal recurrence or the “eternal return of the same”. This concept is integral to the plot of the film because the film follows Phil Connors a weatherman who is cursed to relive the same day over and over. Phil’s life becomes a predictable cycle, one in which escape seems impossible. Phil at first seems hesitant to accept that his life is an endless recurrence of the same but eventually he begins to take advantage of his predicament.…
On December 3rd, 2013 a man by the name of Ki-Suck Han was struck by a train in the late afternoon at the Time Square Substation. After having an altercation with Naeem Davis, a homeless man of the age of 30, Han was pushed down onto the tracks by Naeem Davis. Surrounded by several witnesses, Han seeing the oncoming train, pleaded for help and tried to lift himself off the tracks and back onto the platform. Instead of helping, those around him, instead stood there, pressed a few buttons on their phones (probably less than they would have in comparison of calling 911) and proceeded to record the incident before Han was impacted by the train. As Han’s struggled and pleaded…
In The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie shares with his audience his story of when he learned to read at a young age through a Superman comic book. Through stories and memories of his childhood, he explains how Indian children on reservations were expected not to try in school and fail in the non-Indian world. In order to successfully portray his ideas, Alexie uses many rhetorical techniques and ideas. By using these techniques the audience is forced to look more into the writing instead of just being given the direct meaning of what Alexie is trying to share.…
What if Stan Lee never created the stories he did? How would the world be different? Stan Lee is an unprecedented writer who helped transform the entertainment industry, specifically the comic book industry. He invented intricate characters and stories that changed people's lives. These stories helped the world in many ways. Stan Lee benefitted the entertainment industry by promoting acceptance, creating complex characters and stories, and inspiring others.…
Intolerance on the basis of color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, social status, wealth, and other factors has caused the undue suffering of millions around the world. Even as early as the colonial era, Native Americans have been a prominent target of discrimination; the treatment of the American Indians portrays how modernization can open the door to oppression. Sherman Alexie, a Spokane author, illustrates how past prejudice continues to obstruct his fellow people from attaining success. The underlying theme in Alexie’s writing is his cognizant awareness that intolerance left unchecked makes oppression inevitable. In "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” he tells the story of how he developed his love of reading, and how he uses his gifts to challenge the boundaries that society has set for…
When describing the lightning and the flash, Nietzsche is alluding to the human tendency to disassociate two things that are related. This may be because lightning is the descriptor and the flash is the action, which leads humans to separate the two. Nietzsche describes this mental process as “taking the latter for an action… separates. strength from expression of strength.” The lightning and the flash is related to the lambs and the birds of prey because it is impossible to separate, and blame, the birds of prey from their strength: their tendencies to kill. It would be as equally impossible to separate and blame the lambs for their weakness as their weakness functions as a way to protect themselves. The lambs do not understand this and thus…
Throughout my reading of Stephen King’s On Writing and Sherman Alexie’s Superman and Me, I was able to distinguish between similarities and differences in each of stories. Stephen King is an eminent writer from Maine who is known for writing horror novels. In On Writing, King writes about how people are able to learn both in the classroom and out, but he emphasized the importance of learning outside of school. He writes, “I took my fair share of english lit classes… but, Josh Gould taught me more than any of them” (King 444). I believe that King is saying that we must learn from our experiences and it is okay to fail. King is saying that you can take as any advanced classes as you wish, but what it truly comes down to is if you are an active…
Comparisons can be made between everyone in the world, whether it be a man, woman, child, or animal. In this sense, one can compare authors, such as their lives, their styles of writing, and their pieces of literature. There are many similarities and differences between Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. These similarities and differences include what they focus on in their writings, how they write, and what they believe in. The lives and beliefs of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King can be shown in the pieces they wrote.…
Macbeth and Hamlet are different in many of their characteristics as people. Macbeth is very war orriented and wants to rule everything that he touches while Hamlet is very calm, artistic and sensitive (you can see this…
To start I will give a description as to what I believe is the moral dimension. To explain this I will use an example of physics. We must all realize that the moral dimension is explained through the law of relativity which states that nothing is good or bad, big or small until it is related to something else. The law of relativity tells us that everything in our physical world is only made real by its relationship or comparison to something. Light only exist because we compare it to dark. Good can only exist because we compare it to bad. Hot can only exist because we compare it to cold.…