The Dark Night of the Soul

by Amber Kramer Summary Essay: The Dark Night of the Soul Richard E. Miller essay “The Dark Night of the Soul” to be an interesting way to think about reading and writing in today’s world. Richard uses the violence in the world to question if our educational system is relevant to keeping us safe and whether the power literature can be used to change the tragic event that happen around us every day. Richard begins with a few horrific events such as Columbine high school massacre. He makes us start to think about the motives behind the events. By talking about the possibility that the technological advances could be isolate us into our fantasies. He suggests that reading, writing and, discussing could have changed what had happened at the high school. Then he disproves this thought by telling us how the boys that killed so many people did do these things, but only to support their own ideas. That’s about when he starts to mention a much bleaker outlook on how reading and writing are losing power. He states. “If you’re in the business of teaching others to read and write your labor is increasingly irrelevant.” He explains this well when he says. “Rather than accept the fact that technological advances have taken control of publishing out of the hands of the few and transformed everyone with access to the internet into a potential author and critic, one decry the movement of our cultures critical center from the university to the sound stage of the Oprah Winfrey Show.” In the second part of Richards essay “The Prince of Darkness”, Richard writes about three authors. Two of which are placed in the Martin Amos’s book “Information.” Amos talks about a sad view on writing today how it doesn’t make you a better person or take much talent to be a writer today. Amos shows little respect for the literary arts. He describes them to be as criminals. Amos pins to authors up against each other Richard Tull and Gwyn Barry. Tull’s