...is "Apollo, friends, Apollo- he ordained my agonies- these, my pains on pains!". Shows that he is no longer arrogant and has accepted that Gods decide his fate. ⁃ "My pains", "my eyes", "myself", "me" are all used in the passage. Oedipus keeps using personal pronouns to show that even though he is a human he still has power over his actions. ⁃ "But the hand that struck my eyes was mine". Oedipus is again trying to show that though Gods have power to control man's destiny, however man can do something as well. • Heroism: ⁃ Political Hero: Though at his own expense, he is still is able to save Thebes from the plague by punishing himself. ⁃ Human Hero: Oedipus shows that painful knowledge of truth is more important than ignorant bliss. Blinding himself shows he has assumed responsibility for his actions and is dignified even during his downfall. ⁃ Defeat: Must accept physical defeat because he is blind. Also must accept defeat against fate as by running away from his destiny, he fulfilled it. •...
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...Summary: This paper discusses the ending of Jane Eyre, discussing whether it is a “good” ending. The paper draws on three criticisms of both the novel and Romantic literature in general to conclude that, yes, it is indeed a good ending because it both fits the prevailing realism of the main character’s worldview, and conforms to the predominant literary trends of the period. A Romantic Ending In An Anti-Romantic Novel: Does Jane Eyre End Well? This paper discusses the ending of Jane Eyre, discussing whether it is a “good” ending. The paper draws on three criticisms of both the novel and Romantic literature in general to conclude that, yes, it is indeed a good ending because it both fits the prevailing realism of the main character’s worldview, and conforms to the predominant literary trends of the period. The climate in which Charlotte Bronte wrote her magnum opus was one that had almost fully recovered from the rationalist excesses of the Enlightenment. The existing climate had replaced ‘scientific’ realism with Romanticism of the Byronic sort, drawing on the ancient ideals of chivalry and the new ideals of individual freedom to craft a literature in which suffering does not end with the last romantic sunset. Ultimately, concepts such as happiness cannot be guaranteed to skeptics like Jane Eyre and “hideous” men like Rochester -- only the divine union of passion can be guaranteed. Yet, for Bronte’s characters, this is sufficient reward and an appropriate...
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...Blindness and Insight In Othello the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare, Othello is blind to what is going on around him; similarly in Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex is ignorant to the fate he was tragically born into. Both Oedipus Rex and Othello commit suicide at the end of the play because they gain knowledge of what they have been blind to throughout the entire drama and cannot live with what they have done. Othello cannot live with the knowledge that he murdered his wife whom had done no harm upon him; he was tricked by Iago. Furthermore, Oedipus cannot live with himself after the truth came out that he had murdered his own father and married his mother. Both of these psychological dramas remain timeless because the motifs within them remain to exist in today’s culture. First, in Shakespeare’s “Othello the Moor of Venice," Iago wants to rid Othello and take his place. Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona is the mistress of Cassio, and has been unfaithful to Othello. To convince Othello of Desdemona's infidelity, Iago steals Desdemona’s handkerchief and sets up Cassio to make it seem as if he is having an affair with Desdemona. Othello’s jealous rage blinds him to the plot going on around him and he murders Desdemona without a second thought. “But words are words; I never yet did hear that the bruised heart was pierced through the ear”, as stated in Literature quotes. After the deed was done, Iago’s wife tells Othello the truth, and he makes himself...
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...class, The Color of Fear, featured a focus group of men representing multicultural America, who held an open and often frank discussion of racial issues in the United States. Among the many topics and issues mentioned included the notion of White over Black, or persons of color. Closely related to this is White Supremacy and White Privilege. Other things mentioned by the participants include: being invisible, disregarded, ignored, that minorities held themselves back from progress, and color-blindness to name but a few. In the interest of previewing the content of this course, what was it about the film that got your initial attention, revealed something new in the discussion of race and racism, or made you think closer about everyday events in your personal experience? Reflecting back on the movie and the end of the quarter and all the things I have learned through out, the part of the film that got my initial attention was David. To me he summed up the saying “ignorance is bliss”. He seemed to come from a world where in his mind, equal opportunity was everywhere and he felt very strong about the best person for the job should be the one that gets it based on qualifications not skin color. In actuality, the world outside his own small town was quite the opposite. Minorities that he would consider a friend and look at the same as he would a white person where getting treated bad in some cases and would have to deal with the “white man” always trying to get him down. Working...
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...Ignorance is Not Bliss Cathedral, written by Raymond Carver, is a short fiction essay with the narrator as the real protagonist that goes through a significant transformation. The author’s choice of point of view as well as, the theme and symbolism shown in Cathedral provide evidence to support the protagonist’s epiphany of overcoming his own prejudices. An important theme includes ignorance and understanding and the main symbol of the story is the cathedral itself. These components of the story are important in bringing out the narrator’s epiphany, where he comes to accept people for how they are and realize that he is not superior to someone who has an impairment. Carver chose first person as the point of view for this story. First person narrators are characters who tell the story from the perspective of “I” or “We”. This point of view gives the reader a chance to experience the story how the narrator sees and understands the world. In Cathedral, our narrator speaks in short, chopped sentences in the beginning. This shows the reader that he is lacking self-awareness, arrogant, and/or insecure. The narrator only sees Robert as a blind man, from the start. Throughout the story as the narrator gets to know Robert better, he becomes more descriptive with his sentences and his structure is not as choppy. This is important in showing his change of traits. This demonstrates to the readers that the narrator grows from ignorant to more open-minded and accepting, especially of...
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...The Value of Ignorance The air you breath, the chair you’re sitting in, even the dreams you have are real as far as you know. Yet, imagine if it wasn’t. Imagine if everything in this world was a lie, not real, just a hallucination of sorts. It would be cruising knowing that everything that we’ve been taught is a lie. To make matters worse, there would be no way to go back and you could only dream of the blissful life that you once lead in a lie of a world. So is ignorance truly bliss? This is a question that both Plato and the Wachowski sibling try to answer in their respective works “Allegory Of The Cave” for Plato and The Matrix trilogy from the Wachowski siblings. In both works, they show us that the road to knowledge from ignorance is fraught with struggle yet does not end once you achieve...
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...throughout the entire book. Fitzgerald first introduces this color in the description of a billboard the hovers over a very melancholy part of New York City. He states “The eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg are blue and gigantic…and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away” (Fitzgerald 26). Therefore Fitzgerald indefinably states his point that the color blue is almost a sign of divinity or power above others as which the color of the eyes of doctor were which can be interpreted as the eyes of God looking over a barren land in which he does not actually find favor in. The American can sometimes be said to give the person power above others but as seen in the book you may have to vacate your love for others. The color blue in its essence can have many sorts of meaning and one point of view come from the author Daniel J. Schneider who clearly has an opinion on how blue represents the American dream in this marvelous work. Schneider’s viewpoint on the meaning of the color blue are elucidated as being the ideal perfection of life, as the person living the American dream is paramount in the most buoyant mentality that the world has to offer. He asserts “blue and white become the symbols of the ultimate bliss, the ideal perfection which Gatsby’s parties seem to promise” (Schneider 5). Hence by making this statement Schneider recognizes that the color blue stands for the mindset of the rich and promises given by society on how one must live the American dream. ...
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...In a patch of self-reflection, Charlie epiphanized:“I see that even in my dullness I knew that I was inferior, and that other people had something I lacked-something denied me. In my mental blindness, I thought that it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would automatically have intelligence too” (Keyes 20). Prior to the surgery, Charlie thought about intelligence in a very rigid manner; in shades of black and white. Possibly this more mature perspective is thanks to an increase in intellect, but this shifting of gears, in a sense, was an inclusion of the goal, the path and the spectators. His goal of intelligence, was measured in the eyes of the spectators around him. He would gauge his abilities in a period of contrast to those around him. He traveled on the path to normality, originally, with the notion that the ‘ability to read and write’ was a key to the door...
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...we should be enraged by suffering while Pope believes that we should accept suffering, “Whatever IS, is RIGHT” (203). From the beginning of Pope’s “An Essay on Man,” he makes the idea clear that his focus of the poem is to address humans being blinded by their pride. He writes “In Pride, reas’ning Pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies” (202), this couplet is essential to the understanding of pride in humans. When pride leads humans to question the divine order, this is what Pope believes to cause blindness of the true purpose of individuals. Humans begin to lose focus of their true purpose when they try to understand the idea of cosmic harmony. Every individual plays an important role to the whole of the universe. Pope believes what happens is supposed to happen to keep cosmic order. As Pope continues to address prideful humans misunderstanding of the divine order, “Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame” (202). True happiness all depends on perspective, Pope reasons that, “All discord, Harmony not understood; All...
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...The Loon Study Questions 1. What is the relationship between Vanessa and Piquette, and how does this relationship change? Vanessa's feelings towards Piquette change from discomfort to curiosity to embarrassment. 2. How are the Metis represented in the story? “if that half-breed youngster comes along to Diamond Lake, I'm not going” (188) Vanessa's images of Natives are drawn solely from literature, and these representations are only superficially positive. When Piquette doesn't reveal nature's secrets, Vanessa concludes “as an Indian, Piquette was a dead loss” (191) 3. What do the loons symbolize? “My dad says we should listen and try to remember how they sound, because in a few more years when more cottages are built at Diamond Lake and more people come in, the loons will go away” (190-91). Years later when Vanessa visits the lake, after the deaths of her father and Piquette, she realizes that the loons are no longer there. The loons become associated with death and loss, and while symbolic of Piquette, they are also an allegory of Canadian history. 4. What does Vanessa mean by the last sentence of the story? When Vanessa encounters Piquette as a young woman, she recognizes in Piquette what she hears in the loons' cries—“self-pity” (192) and “terrifying hope” (193); when Vanessa learns of Piquette's death soon after, she responds with silence. Vanessa's personal loss—of her father and of Piquette—is connected through the symbol of the loons...
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...Title: Consumption and Utopia Student’s name: Professor’s name: Course title: 18 May 2016 Consumption and Utopia A Brave New World is a novel that was written in the year 1931, but however published in the year 1932 by Aldous Huxley, (Huxley, 2006). The novel “A brave new world” is said to have been set in London in the year AD 2540. It portrays a futuristic society whereby the individual is to be sacrificed for the state, science will be used to control and subjugate, and a world in which all forms of art and history are outlawed. These novel as well anticipates the developments and growth in reproductive technology, psychological manipulation, sleep-learning, as well as several classical conditionings that combine based on the change in the society. These novel, “Brave new world”, revolves around a number of ideas from science, sex, power, suffering, literature and writing, freedom and confinement, isolation, drug and alcohol, identity, spirituality, society and class, and finally the dissatisfaction that comes with our different passions and live. Based on research, (Huxley, 2006), Aldous Huxley wrote the novel “brave new world”, to portray science and how it affects people. He intend to portray a high technological and futuristic society and how horrifying and at the same time fascinating it might end up to be. A world in which the society is controlled by their very own impulses, thoughts and emotions and how science may at times tend to imprison humanity rather...
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...Petersen1 Natalie Petersen S. Feldman English 1A T/TH 5:00PM December 6, 2012 The Art of Being Educated In life we all tend to be confined by our own beliefs and the beliefs of others. Our personal development depends so urgently on our sense of self. To be educated means living with an open mind and having a strong sense of self, for when we live with an open mind we are no longer confined by our beliefs nor are we confined by the beliefs of others. There are numerous opportunities available to us everyday and if we don’t expose ourselves to possible changes then we can never truly grasp true education. “In fact, a green banana is waiting for all of you who leave your own centers of the world in order to experience other places”(Batchelder). Batchelder wants us to understand when we are finally in a position to open ourselves up to change we are susceptible to successes we may never of imagined. Furthermore, letting go of old habits can be a necessary change, because by doing so we open ourselves up to life supporting us more fully in ways it can best do so. If only we all could decipher Lopez’s true message in his excerpt “ I could see the sheen where I’d sat for years,” and relate to the epiphany he had when he realized “there was no reason to sit where I was”(Lopez). We would grasp being truly educated means being able to make the choice in life to move in a different direction even if it means jumping out of our comfort zones. Now and again our comfort zones are...
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...Oedipus’ actions throughout the book are clearly effects of his turbulent past, and can mostly be categorized as a obsession with control. His quickness to anger stems from his inability to rest when his life does not stick to the script he plays in his head, whether it appear in the form of refusal to share information, or it be an accusal of murder, Oedipus feels out of control and helpless, manifesting his anger as a way to cope with his dissatisfaction. His thirst for knowledge, similarly can be derived from wishing to know everything, so that he can be the most powerful one in the room at all times. Ultimately, his need for control, however, stems from the fogginess that surrounds his past and even his own self. As a result of his blindness to his past Oedipus cements himself as an insecure, but emotionally complicated character worth investigating further. Word Count: 502 Prompt #2: The Chorus serves many purposes in the play, most notably, as a narrator, a provider of insight, and a bridge to the audience. The Chorus often emerges in times of confusion or times when a character or characters come to a realization. They pose as a way to communicate to the audience what the other characters do not say explicitly and allow the audience to gain some insight into what the characters are unaware of, opening the door for the presence of dramatic irony within the play. Seemingly existing simultaneously in Oedipus’ world as well as that of the audience, the Chorus often breaks...
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...somehow grow stale, neglecting to ask the correct questions. This is to say, for some reason, humanity has become accustomed to categorizing things based on inconsequential attributes. Humanity searches for organization and meaning. “God” was merely a biproduct of homo sapiens sapiens’ tendency to incessantly create meaning. Furthermore, these categories are based on what can be perceived by the senses, which are, themselves, notoriously untrustworthy. Through this process, humanity has lost sight of individuality of things, and has failed to recognize the essence of what truly is, due to outdated, false assumptions, which have been collected and passed down from generation to generation. Mankind has developed a chronic and debilitating blindness and is incapable of seeing what truly is. “God” is an archaic, second-handed idea, passed repeatedly from generation to generation, which after serving its purpose, has now expired. In other words, “God is dead.” Later in the manuscript, Nietzsche imparts to the reader metaphysical evidence within the following sentences: “Thus, the strength of our knowledge does not lie in its degree of truth but in its age, its embodiment, its character as a condition of life.” (Existentialism Basic Writings 135) This quote serves as evidence to Nietzsche’s idea that “God” is merely a concept that developed and evolved over time. Because of the vast quantity of time that the idea of “God” has been present in the mind of humanity, “he” is very “strong”...
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...to provide his perfect society and his aspect on life. Aldous Huxley was born from a literary family. His father, Leonard Huxley was also a writer and poet and also provided major input into the theory of evolution (European Graduate School). Aldous’ mother died when he was only sixteen years old. Shortly after his mother’s death, Huxley developed a disease in which he was completely blind for eighteen months. One eye recovered and he learned braille during this time period, so life became easier for him. Huxley studied at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1916 he received his B.A. in English. He had two previous dreams in which he was incapable of fulfilling: One was to fight in World War II which he was not capable of due to his partial blindness and the second was to be a scientist. Due to his need for money he turned to writing to help him through life. He wrote his first novel in 1921, which was “Crome Yellow”. Huxley, in almost every single one of his novels or stories includes a criticism of society through dialogue and wit. D.H. Lawrence, also a writer, was one of Huxley’s close friends and they traveled together where he found a home in Italy for most of the twenties. He then settled down, married, and had kids. His most noted novel was “Brave New World” that he wrote in the 1930s. “Brave New World” discusses Huxley’s prediction and opinion of technology development. “Island” was one of Huxley’s last novels that he wrote, just a year before he died. In the books Huxley wrote...
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