Carpe Diem
It is often thought that one should act on instincts, but is it really practical to live of sudden impulses rather than planning for the future? That concept is expressed in a positive light in a whole variety of inspirational messages that manage to make it seem very appealing, However in actuality it leads to an unhealthy obsession with youth and instant gratification. Throughout poetry authors express the thought that a short dynamic life is preferred over a longer static one. Carpe diem glorifies the philosophy that youthful pride is desirable no matter the cost as illustrated in “To an Athlete Dying Young”, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”, and “My My, Hey Hey.”
In “To an Athlete Dying Young” the author fixates on the
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He implies that the impulsive lifestyle of many artists is synonymous with fame, “My my, hey hey/ Rock and roll is here to stay/ It’s better to burn out /Than to fade away/ My my, hey hey” (Young). Young warns about fading away and being forgotten and suggests to “burn out” or die early after living life of notoriety and recognition. This message emphasizes the glory and success of a moment followed by immediate downfall. Young suggests that one should live in the moment and perish before they become obsolete. Young also says, “The king is gone/ but he’s not forgotten/ This is the story of a Johnny Rotten/ It’s better to burn out/ than it is to rust/ The king is gone/ but he’s not forgotten”(Young). He acknowledges the legacy of “the king” who died early as a successful example of the carpe diem philosophy. He then alludes to “Johnny Rotten” a once influential punk rock star who is now unrecognized. This helps prove his point that dying young cements fame while continuing in a career leads to being forgotten. Fame and pride are worth dying for according to Young because they end up turning one into an influential
Ms. Stender doesn’t remember what exactly sparked her interest in sports. She recalls that she loved to, “be outside and to run and to play and to jump.” The more she practiced and played, the better she felt, and so she
The poem “American Hero” by Essex Hemphill, is about a competitive match of basketball, however, towards the end the author describes a social denial from other neighborhoods that despise his team. To convey his feelings, the author’s tone in the beginning of the poem is thrilling as it stimulates the feeling of playing competitively in a game of basketball when reading until the game is over when the tone gets wretched as the thought of being denied by the opposing team’s school sinks in to the author’s mind. Furthermore, the tone and the use imagery are used to convey the sense of being in the game and knowing the environment in this tense basketball game. An example of this is on lines 5-9, it states “It’s a shimmering club light and I’m
The movie portrays the issue of when young athletes feel much more pressure and stress to succeed in their sport than they should. It becomes almost important to win. The
The author begins by talking about how the fans are entertained during the whole time the game is going on. She also mentioned all the advertisements that the fans watching the event see all over the area. Then she changes course to talk about all these things that there are room for in athletics, such as “sex, alcohol, violence, and religion. ”(Smith)
In the poem, "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A.E. Housman and in the article, "Excerpt from OTL: Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building" by Wright Thompson, both writers advert to athletes such as Michael Jordan to suggest that those who live a long life of accomplishments will remain in the public's memories. Housman and Thompson suggest this because of how those who support the athlete are described once the athlete is out of the game and how the athlete's life is predicted. In "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A.E. Housman and in "Excerpt from OTL: Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building" by Wright Thompson, it is suggested that a long life of accomplishments will result as a long-term memory to the public based on how the supporters of the athletes are described. Michael Jordan realizes how crazy it is to know that everyone who looks up to him will eventually forget about him when
“To an Athlete Dying Young,” the title is quick to attract the eyes of a person with an athletic interest. However, beneath the title lies a poem that possesses many components of a masterpiece that ultimately attracts more than the previously stated group of human beings. The man behind the “masterpiece,” A.E. Housman, was born in March of 1859. Growing up in England, Housman’s education was the least questionable attribute about him. It was his drive for greater knowledge that led him to seek more and ultimately compose the masterpiece of, “To an Athlete Dying Young,” which is a part of the novel A Shropshire Lad, also by Housman.
Brad Wolverton’s “The Education of Dasmine Cathey” peers into the life of student-athlete Dasmine Cathey and the academic struggles imposed on him through his environment. Wolverton’s evaluative argument, or an argument that scrutinizes every aspect of a chosen subject, utilizes a variety of rhetorical strategies and techniques such pathetic appeals through the inclusion of photographs and the use of imagery in the various scenes of Dasmine’s life in the article. To understand Wolverton’s argument, it is important to review his credentials—as a former senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, where this article was first published, Wolverton has written dozens of articles critiquing the college athletic system since 2005. Due to
Literary Analysis “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies in us while we live. ”--Norman Cousins Losing something one loves is hard, but losing one's self is worse.
The book highlights the good and the bad of the sport. For someone who may not be too interested in it, or just has to read it for a history class, he made it entertaining. Giving not only a history lesson on the sport but just as much on the working class of America and the emerging commercialized leisure’s and shifting social classes in the nineteenth century. Gorn is able to interweave social and political issues of the times all told with characters as colorful and wild as the early days of this country. Men crave the order of violence with rules and attach elevated importance to such contests in part because so much of life is entirely unjust and oppressive.
With both philosophies of, Carpe diem and the acronym YOLO comes an abundant amount of confusion and opinions; they are not synonyms. In agreement with the philosophy of Carpe diem, humans tend to sit and wait around instead of seizing the day or moment. Tim McGraw’s country song, “Live Like You Were Dying” is a quintessential example of Carpe diem. Lyrics such as, “I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu” helps render to the philosophy of Carpe diem. With the phrase YOLO meaning, “you only live once” ensues teenagers, as of myself, to bypass the substantial outcomes that can happen.
In 1940, 18 players died as a result of spinal injuries, fractured skulls and broken ribs. (pg. 9 and 10) I find it clever that Almond begins the section with a quote by a very well known American president. “I believe in..rough, manly sports. I do not feel any particular sympathy for the person who gets battered about a good deal as long as it is not fatal.”
In John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player” the poet uses literary devices to depict the existing way of life of a once-famous sportsperson. Flick Webb was in before times a gifted athlete on his high school basketball team, and he was commendable of much awe. However, Flick never acquired any other skills to prepare him for a future. Accordingly, he now is locked into an unskilled job and his former glories have pale to all but Flick himself. Updike has created a character that is at this point in time going nowhere and spends most of his time thinking about his former days of glory.
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies while still alive.” This quote by 2pac relates to the tragedy of Julius Caesar. Caesar had so much potential and did many things for Rome. Caesar was murdered for the sole fact that others were afraid of a tyrant running Rome.
The writer further explains that the idea of winning sometimes causes severe injuries that may prevail for a lifetime. In these games, a child may crash into one another accidently that creates a fear of getting hurt. Just to protect themselves some children back out of many games and are left behind when it comes to the development of their bodies. The rest of the children who are part of these games are in a constant pressure from their parents and coaches that cause the stress and anxiety. Furthermore, the writer states that this “sport becomes job like”.
“If We Must Die”by Claude Mckay places emphasis on a meaningful death and never giving up even when the odds aren't in your favor. McKay lectures,“Like men we'll face murderous cowardly pack pressed to the wall dying but fighting back,” McKay,13-14) " the speaker knows that the odds are not in his favor yet he continues to give it his all. To McKay, the honor of knowing that you put in everything you had right up until the last minute is very important. McKay like Antigone do what they think is right and don't worry about what the end result might be. McKay announces “ the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us though dead”( McKay 7-8).