In Geoffrey Wolff’s The Duke of Deception, had characters that were full of lies. The Duke for example, reminded me of a snake. To put it differently, he was someone who constantly lied, and stole from others and never thought twice of denying it. His character ultimately became someone I couldn’t trust. On the one hand, he seemed to be a modeled citizen that attended an Ivy League school and became this rich snooty person.
It is sometimes difficult for individuals to settle the discrepancy between truth and illusion, and consequently they drive others away, by shutting down. Mrs. Ross, in The Wars by Timothy Findley, is seen as brittle while she is attending church, and cannot deal with the cruel reality of the war and therefore segregates herself from the truth by blacking it out. As a result, she loses her eyesight, and never gets to solve the clash between her awareness of reality and the actuality of the world. She hides behind a veil, and her glasses to distance herself from reality. Mrs. Davenport has to wheel her around in Rowena’s chair to keep her awake, so she doesn’t harbour up subconscious feeling within her dreams, which she is unable to deal with.
The struggle of man versus nature long has dwelt on the consciousness of humanity. Is man an equal to his environment? Can the elements be conquered, or only endured? We constantly find ourselves facing these questions along with a myriad of others that cause us to think, where do we fit? These questions, crying for a response, are debated, studied, and portrayed in both Jack London’s “
The muckrakers were a group of journalists who wrote in depth, investigative stories that exposed the problems in American society and urged the public to identify solutions (Progressivism PowerPoint). They sought to advance the spread of democracy, improve efficiency in government and industry, and promote social justice (U.S. History chapter 21). Jacob Riis a journalist and a photographer used photojournalism to capture the dismal and dangerous living conditions in working-class tenements in New York City in his book how the other half lives. In the book he showed pictures such as children sleeping in the street. This exposed Americans all over the country to the living conditions of the urban poor (U.S. History chapter 21).
Every day the immigrants went to work and grinded away and made not that much change. This hard work caused indescribable grief, explained by Sinclair, “It was stupefying, brutalizing work; it left her no time to think, no strength for anything.” Also, written in “The Jungle”, Sinclair described Elzbieta and the immigrants experiencing a difficult life and that insensibility is a merciful blessing, “She was part of the machine she tended, and every faculty that was not needed for the machine was doomed to be crushed out of existence. There was only one mercy about the cruel grind-- that it gave her the gift of insensibility.”
As David Foster Wallace’s speech ‘This is Water” states, he recognizes that we are exceptionally lucky to live in a society that prizes tolerance and diversity of belief. Where do these beliefs come from? These beliefs are the product of what he calls our ‘default setting’. We are hard-wired to be deeply and literally self-centered and arrogant. We operate with blind certainty, “a close mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.”
A strange question to ask since looking at present day, many people will say, “Obviously”; however, it’s not that simple of an assumption to make. Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” is a clear indication that the answer is not that clear cut. His arguments are persuasive and agreeable, but not enough to say that human kind introducing farming did no on any favors. Adopting agriculture was a disadvantage because it decreased the value of a human life and the state of health; nonetheless, farming was advantageous because the deteriorating human health scientifically benefitted us, and brought upon economic advantages. With the emergence of technology and paleopathology, paleopathologists discovered
In “The Indispensable Opposition”, Walter Lippmann writes that respecting others freedom of speech is difficult, but it must be done. He informs the readers that freedom of opinion is of the utmost importance in society, and that the freedom of others is our own vital necessity. He persuades readers by using powerful diction to set the tone, periodic sentences, and juxtaposition. Lippmann uses diction to emphasize his point, in that he uses multiple words to draw the reader's attention.
Not only does this exist on a blatant scale as we see with these extreme groups, it also exists in many countries like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Iran. These countries rule based on dogmatism rather than logic and morality. In conclusion, John Wyndham was, perhaps, warning against the very societies that have formed thanks to the blind following of faith which disallows logical exploration of right and
In human nature there are two ways to determine how we classify people, perceptions of others at attributions. Perception describes the way we filter people, and attributions explains how we react to people. In the novel the Chrysalids by John Wyndham a major key theme is perception of others, along with how religion can blind judgement. In the society of Waknuk domination of strict religious beliefs and traditions on perfection makes waknukians fear “difference” of appearance. Anyone/thing that is not in the purest form is hateful in the sight of god and is therefore not pure a “deviant’’ (Wyndham 18).
William Gass’s writes in his essay The Art of Self, discusses how “minorities should be promoted to major, and how sects gain possession of the holy” (43). This means that minorities deserve more respect and power than what they receive. While sects should gain sole possession of the holy, Gass references how non-minorities should get more respect and power than minorities. Another statement that connects to a previous comment written by Gass explains how some humans should let behavior just speak for itself instead of just relying on non-verbal communication. Humans cannot determine a person by looking at their gait or how much swagger they have, they have to look at the person’s personality and inside emotions and behavior before anything
Meaning of Life What is life? What is the meaning of our existence? These existential questions were asked by almost every individual alive at some point in their life. Over the years many philosophers have come up with individual explanations to why they believe life can be unreasonable, futile, the will of god, or just simply meaningless.
Throughout history there have been many argumentative writings that can evoke various feelings. At times these writings fall short of proving their point through a lack of evidence or ability to prove their case to the reader. However, other times these argumentative writings provide a case that is so strong that the reader would be hard pressed to find fault in the authors logic. Mark Twain’s The Damned Human Race is one such piece of literature.
Literary texts in which London is the primary setting often discuss the crime that exists within the city. In some, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, crime and its prevalence in London drives the central storyline. In others, crime feeds into the overall representation of the city that the text presents, as in John Gay’s Trivia, or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London. By writing the city in relation to the crime within, both Gay and Doyle create a London that by its nature enables and aids crime, and use its presence to facilitate the distinct messages within their texts.
“It must be a peace without victory!” said U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.” “Victory would mean peace forced upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation,under duress,at an intolerable sacrifice and would leave a sting,a resentment,a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest,not permanently,but only as upon quicksand. Only peace between equals can last. ”World War 1 did end
