The ''Greasy Lake" seems to be influence by Bruce Springsteen ''Spirit in the Night". It is like used an epigraph from his song even though its not about the characters of the story. The characters and actions are completely made up. The ''Greasy Lake'' seemed to just imitate the song and take on its a free spirit.…
Ish’s View of Civilization In the book, Earth Abides, Ish (the protagonist) is facing many problems. With these problems comes different views of things. As the colony is first expanding, Ish believes that the tribe is capable of carrying off his way of civilization but as time passes he realizes that his beliefs may not be as true as he thought they were. As the Tribe is growing up, Ish believes that his tribe is able to carry on his generation’s culture.…
After reading “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, I have come to believe the central idea would be to speculate before you do, and the coming of age. Gene was always jealous of Finny, because Gene felt inferior to Finny. This led to Gene doing something horrific, without even thinking what…
One problem both Lear and Okonkwo possess is that they belive their image is more important than what they truly feel and think. Okonkwo kills his beloved adopted son Ikemefuna against his emotions to preserve his standing in the tribe and to not make him seem weak or impotent. King Lear disowns his most loved daughter because she insulted his boisterous ego. Nearly everything these two men do is based upon what their public image will look like in the end. Another example from Chinua Achabee's Things Fall Apart is Okonkwo's disowning of his eldest son Nwoye because he did not want to be seen as a weak man. This problem plagues these two people throughout their despairing stories.…
Gilgamesh is extremely selfish at the start of the tale. Even with his selfish deeds, the town’s people think of him as their hero. Being two parts god but still one part human almost obligates him to be a hero. First, he demands to sleep with all of the new brides before their honeymoon. He also has to face great evils. He helps destroy Humbaba and then he kills the Bull of Heaven. His worst deed of all is dragging Enkidu down with him when he angers the gods. But when Enkidu dies for him, he has a change of heart. He mourns…
One the narrator’s showcase of conceitedness is displayed through his actions/interactions with others. Upon arriving at the event the narrator is told he will be participating in a battle royal. The narrator relays to the reader “I had some misgivings over the battle royal, by the way. Not from a distaste for fighting but because I didn 't care too much for the other fellows who were to take part. (p.243)” The narrator sees the others as his inferior, as though ignorant to the fact that they are all entertainment. He makes little to any conversation with any of the boys because all that is on his mind is his speech and grandfather’s curse. The persistence shown is shockingly hilarious when the reader reads, “I was limp as a dish rag. My back felt as though it had been beaten with wires… There was still laughter as I faced them, my mouth dry, my eyes throbbing. I began slowly… (p.248)” Had he no respect for his people to walk away from such embarrassment and not deliver this speech? No. His pride was not for his people, but of himself and he was determined to have these men hear his speech. At one point the reader grows concern of whether or not the speech is that important. The reader was surprised by the actions of the narrator, but it is his thoughts that make you question his character.…
On page 4, lines 185-186, the book states that "Gilgamesh lets no son go free to his father, by day and by night his tyranny grows." While reading this quote, I thought of Gilgamesh as a hero who had lost his way when he became corrupt with power. In the prelude, it discusses Gilgamesh being this great hero, who built most of the city of Uruk and traveled to the ends of the Earth. But at some point when he is king, he becomes the selfish and greedy tyrant that we meet on page 4. Through his relationship with Enkidu in the later parts of the tale, I believe that his restless nature is somewhat calmed, and he starts to become more of what we classically think of a hero. While reading these chapters, I saw a few parallels between Gilgamesh and…
Thus, almost inadvertently summoning up an evil shadow through the summoning of the spirit, it’s clear that Ged needs to control the reckless/impulsive aspects of his personality and increase his self-control in order to become mature. Ged’s emerging self-control is firstly evident when “These moments of fear and darkness, he said to himself, were shadows merely of his ignorance. The more he learned, the less he would have to fear, until finally in his full power as Wizard he needed fear nothing in the world, nothing at all.” (Le Guin 74). Even though Ged’s previous encounters with magic had not done him well, he believes that learning more skills is essential to becoming a powerful wizard.…
The character of King Lear possesses the fatal flaw of hubris. He is arrogant, self-absorbed, an imperious king who is unbelievably unrealistic. Especially in the division of his kingdom, his title always came first and he had little or no understanding of what it meant to be a father or to love as can be seen in Act One nothing will come of nothing. Speak again. Hence Lears suffering from Act Three onwards is a large part of his journey…
Pride is a very dangerous trait. It can take you over, make you feel self conscious, and eventually change you altogether. When put under pressure, pride will make a decision for you. In the book of Genesis in the Bible, Eve, along with the serpent, manipulates Adam to eat the fruit from the tree. She teases him and because of his pride he eats the apple and is thrown out of Heaven, just like in Shakespeare 's play Macbeth. Macbeth is full of pride and as Lady Macbeth manipulates him and makes him feel pathetic, so his character slowly but surely changes from a War Hero into an Evil Murderer.…
In today society, we try to determine the fairness of our system by discussing the important of one of many controversies issue which are dividing us apart. We want to come up with a unite decision that will benefit all of us. Capital punishment today is still one of the most difficult topics which had not yet been resolved. John K. Cochran and Beth A. Sanders are the authors of The Gender Gap in Death Penalty Support: An Exploratory Study article demonstrate how we deal with the capital punishment issue by providing the method and its result of their researches. In the past, men are known as a group which supports capital punishment more than women. Although the gap between men and women about this topic has been enduring over time, there has been evidence of a change in narrowing or widening of this gap as the authors noticed that in their researches, the main keys factors which influence such a decision bases on five of these believes: Values differences and traditional gender socialization practices, traditional gender norms and roles, status differentials and gender inequalities, gender differences in life experiences/life-chances and feminist consciousness and women’s autonomy.…
Though sometimes used in stories or fables as something to aspire to, such as being proud of one 's work, pride is looked upon as quite the opposite in Beowulf. In Seamus Heaney 's translation, pride is depicted as an unfortunate, often fatal, flaw which will eventually lead to tragedy or the untimely demise of the character cursed with this trait. Many of the main characters display this affliction, several examples being Hrothgar, whose pride leads to the deaths of his people, Beowulf, whose pride leads to his demise, and even Wiglaf, whose pride foreshadows tragedy in his future. Even though pride may seem a useful asset at times, it will almost never remain so. In the vast majority of cases, the pride held by a person will lead to tragedy either for themselves, or someone else.…
When Finny broke the school swimming record set by A. Hopkins Parker without even trying, Gene knew that even if he tried he couldn't do it. What Gene didn't understand was that Finny didn't want anybody to know about what he had done that day. For Finny to tell Gene that he didn't want anybody to know what happened, was in a way an insult to Gene because Finny was basically saying, "I can do it and you can't". This is a perfect example of Gene being jealous at Finny for something that he could never do. In another case where Gene would be jealous of Finny's athleticism and popularity is when he invents the game "Blitzball". Everybody enjoyed playing the game "I believe a form of it is still being played at Devion" page 52 and listened to Finny as he told everybody how to play. Finny was able to talk people into doing anything, just by how he acted. Moreover, he was able to invent a new sport because of his athleticism.…
At the beginning of the play, Lear was a selfish man. Power was very important to him. Suffering turned Lear from a selfish man wanted to be treated as a king without having the responsibilities that come with running a kingdom, to a man that comes to realize his morals and values. Lear gave away his kingdom to Gonerial and Regan but still wanted the same status and power of king. Lear gained wisdom through his mistakes of banishing his youngest daughter, Cordelia. Lear comes to the realization of his foolishness in act three. For instance, “Let thunder rumble! Let lightning spit fire! The rain, the wind, the thunder and lightning are not my daughters. Nature, I don’t accuse your weather of unkindness. I never gave a kingdom or raised you as my child, and you don’t owe me any obedience." Here King Lear is coming to terms of his mistake of giving away his kingdom to the wrong people. He then goes on "So go ahead and have your terrifying fun. Here I am, your slave a poor, sick, weak, hated, old man. But I can still accuse you of kowtowing, taking my daughter’s side, against me, ancient as I am. Oh, it’s foul!” In this scene Lear is in the storm with Kent and the fool. In this act the king is turning from an arrogant man to a noble man. It takes king Lear a complete breakdown to realize his mistake.…
Pride is a funny thing, too much or too little of it can hurt you, however, just enough pride can help you achieve many things. Pride can come from a lot of different things like, winning a battle, being king, or just being well known. Odysseus and Oedipus both had pride, but different forms of it. One of the men was more humble while the other would not listen to anyone. One of the men’s pride led him to his fall and caused him to turn on his own friend, the other man’s pride helped him achieve wondrous things like, getting back home to his family. Oedipus was a king, as well as Odysseus, but Oedipus was not a very humble king. He was proud to be king and wanted everyone else to know he was king. Oedipus was well known among his people, but when asked questions about himself, he did not like to answer. Oedipus would avoid answering questions about himself. He would not listen to anything anybody had to say. For example, when Creon, Oedipus’s brother-in-law and friend, comes back from the oracle with the news about the plague, Creon wishes to tell Oedipus in private, but Oedipus was everyone else to hear. Oedipus thought one way and one way only, his way. Oedipus also like to blame other people, nothing was ever his fault. In the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Thebes in under a plague and for the plague to lifted, the murderer of Laius must be driven out of Thebes. Oedipus goes on to blame the citizens of Thebes for making no attempt to find the criminals, because of his pride Oedipus will blame everyone else before he will blame himself.…