According to Mental Health America, 1 in 5 adults suffer from a mental illness. That’s more than 40 million Americans who live with a disorder every day, oftentimes invisible to other people. “Richard Cory” is a poem by author Edwin Arlington Robinson that touches on the idea of hiding mental illness and problems behind a MASK. The work goes hand in hand with William Golding’s Lord Of the Flies, which also touches on different points on the map of huMAN flaws and how a viel permits them to come into fruition. While Golding uses MASKs both physically and symbolically in order to illustrate the concept of instinct SAVAGEry in MAN, Robinson relates the use of MASKs by society to conceal their flaws. “Richard Cory” and Lord Of the Flies utilize …show more content…
Many people become a whole different person when they are in a social situation, whether it be as someone who is extroverted with others being introverted on their own or someone who is shy around others being confident on their own. Oftentimes, the rationale for this behavior is to shield mental illnesses or disorders from the judgmental eye of other people; this is the case for Richard Cory. The serene, utopic tone of the is filled with misleading phrases that build up towards the poem’s abrupt final line. The collective narrator describes the MAN from their perspective, as a MAN who is “clean favored, and imperially slim” (Robinson 4) and “glittered when he walked” (Robinson 8). This deceives the reader into thinking that everything in the life of Richard Cory is perfect. This same mistake is made in real life, oftentimes for people suffering from mental illness. They see him this way because of the MASK he wears: as a “gentleMAN from sole to crown” (Robinson 3). Their misconception leads to a probable shock after unearthing the events portrayed in the poem’s closing line when it is stated that he “went home and put a bullet through his head” (Robinson 16). The juxtaposition of the calm summer setting of the previous line also contributes to the climax’s impact. This commentary on the nature of huMAN relationships and the importance of huMAN connection that the author provides contrasts with Golding’s use of MASKs in Lord Of the Flies. Both authors use MASKs to express the idea that huMANity is flawed and covers up their flaws by living as someone completely different than ourselves. The way “Richard Cory” and Lord Of the Flies differ in their use of MASKs is the makeup of MAN that the works are touching upon. “Richard Cory” talks about the emotionally flawed part of MAN that is hidden from others, whereas Lord Of
Lord of the Flies is a novel about the rise and fall of a civilization, and how a symbol can dictate the difference between success and failure. A civilized society thrives when respect, and order are
This passage conveys a personal and emotional story line. It personalizes the human struggle of an individual living with multiple disadvantages. Nicholas Kristof uses the strategy of pathos to make the audience feel a sense of guilt. One of Nicholas Kristof’s friends, Rick Goff, is representative of the travails of working-class America.
In Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s portrayal of the stranded boys’ bloodlust shows a childhood filled with tribulation and terror. Golding showcases his belief that all men contain wicked desires when the boys abandon their attempts of democracy on the island. Their time spent on the island reveals that even childhood innocence turns dark without society enforcing justice. Simon’s hallucination with the pig’s head creates a physical representation of the evil that took over the stranded boys. The pig tells Simon, “fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!
Social Psychology workers found/That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink./... bought a paper every day/...normal in every way./... fully insured,/...once in hospital but left it cured (Auden).” The man in the poem was perfect for this world. Due to him conforming so well, he had benefits that not everyone was able to have like being popular and having insurance. Being like everyone else, in this case, doesn’t seem so bad yet. This poem seems very pro-conformity until the end, where it takes a turn.
Anonymity and Its Effect People have many different sides to them; some that they’re proud of and consistently show to the world and others that they’d rather keep hidden. These concealed, darker aspects are locked away due to morals and society, but in certain situations, those traits can rise to the surface. Anonymity can provide a sense of security for people to let their civility slide away resulting in them committing actions that might otherwise be unthinkable. In the novel, Lord of The Flies, by William Golding, a group of British boys crash on an island and slowly lose sight of logic, rescue and civility. Many of the boys hide behind anonymity, whether it’s provided from masks, the dark, or being consumed by a group, resulting in savage
In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask” the speaker wears a mask to hide his internal suffering because he does not want the rest of the world to think he is weak. This poem relates the prejudice black people face against white people. The speaker starts the poem with the lines, “We wear the mask that grins and lies,” (1). Here he describes the kind of “masks” that he wears.
Controversy of the Iraq War sparked an ethical conversation that was similar to the Vietnam War, authors such as Tim O’Brien and Chris Kyle share their primary accounts on their thoughts of war. In 1990, about 15 years after the Vietnam war ended, Tim O’Brien publishes his work of fiction called, The Things They Carried. The Things They Carried was a melancholy, detailed collection of short stories that follows the protagonist, Tim O’Brien and his company of men before, during and after the Vietnam War. Later in 2012, after his tour of duty in Iraq, Chris Kyle publishes his memoir of his accounts in Iraq. American Sniper is a patriotic, straightforward novel that explains Kyle’s thought process while he’s at the Iraq War.
He could imagine his deception of this town “nestled in a paper landscape,” (Collins 534). This image of the speaker shows the first sign of his delusional ideas of the people in his town. Collins create a connection between the speaker’s teacher teaching life and retired life in lines five and six of the poem. These connections are “ chalk dust flurrying down in winter, nights dark as a blackboard,” which compares images that the readers can picture.
In the book the Lord of the Flies the masks that Jack’s group uses helps them overcome their fear of killing the pig by hiding their true feelings. When Jack volunteers himself as the leader of hunting he doesn’t realize that he would have to overcome new challenges. Masculinity “masks” and the clay masks they wear in the Lord of the Flies are basically just “things trying to look like something else” (Golding 63). Jack explains to his group of hunters that the masks they were going to wear are so they can look like something they are not or to hide what is keeping them from killing a pig. This shows that they are trying to push away their true selves and by looking like something else they can make a character of who they choose to be based on the reason they put the “mask” on.
Lord of the Flies remains Golding’s most accredited piece of work. It is an apparently simple but densely layered novel that has been categorized as fiction, fable, a myth, and a tale. Generous use of symbolism in Golding’s work is what distinguishes him with other authors of the same genre. For example, the conch shell, that represents a vulnerable hold of authority which was finally shattered to pieces with Piggy’s death. Secondly, for the other boys, Piggy’s eyeglasses represented the lack of intelligence which was later defeated by superstition and savagery.
The persona is actually sympathetic in attitude and expresses this for himself and the other prisoners. Even though the other prisoners may not have the same opinion as his, the narrator’s voice appears firm and reliable and thus expresses his feelings about the whole tale. The last stanzas of the poem show that the events are straight in the poem even if emotions are not. For example, the narrators say
The complex idea that is shown with my mask is loss of innocence. Loss of innocence is shown in Lord of the Flies especially when the boys kill Simon, the only truly innocent one on the island. His whole time on the island, he knew that the other boys were the beast, the savage ones. He always knew that their innocence was lost. Another way loss of innocence is shown in Lord of the Flies is that as the boys were being rescued, Ralph cried for the first time and he cried for “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
The poem I chose to analyze is We Wear the Mask, written by Paul Lawrence Dunbar in 1896. Its theme is about hiding our true feelings and emotions, and lying about who we are. When looking at Dunbar’s life history, and the political context at the time, we understand that he efficiently uses this theme in order to talk about how black people have to hide how they feel about their social status and the treatment they receive from white people. He conveys the theme to the audience thanks to a clever word choice. Indeed, he talks about “grin” and “smile”, using facial expressions as a description of the mask (Dunbar, lines 1 & 4).
The essay concludes that the two novels are similar in their messages and their authors’ beliefs, however they differ in the sense that Lord of the Flies is more superficial than
Overall, The Lord of the Flies was a very graphic novel that sought to depict the dark side of human nature. Every aspect of the novel contributed to the overall theme. From the Golding’s decision to use teenage boys as the main characters because of their disposition to behave recklessly to his use of the pig’s head to represent the devil, the story is a very effective cautionary