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Tom Paine’s, A Boys Book of Nervous Breakdowns: Stories, published by Louisiana State University in 2015, is a collection of stories that deals with issues from war, Wall Street, and to inner demons within a human mind. Each story there are the main characters, the background characters, and the care free characters. Each character struggles with some form of sickness whether its PTSD, depression, or suicidal thoughts. Every character is not some hero to change the world but to struggle and survive everyday problems. Whether it’s a soldier from Afghanistan with a girlfriend that wants a normal life, to a Japanese reggae singer that is positive that the CIA killed the infamous singer Bob Marley. Each character Paine created is completely original
In 1776, tensions between the American colonies and Great Britain were high. A war was brewing. There were those who desired independence, such as Thomas Paine, and there were those, like Charles Inglis, who wanted to remain loyal to Great Britain. Both Paine and Inglis penned influential works to the colonists in regards to preserving their way of life. Inglis wrote The Deceiver Unmasked as a rebuttal to Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, because he understood the far reaching effects the pamphlet could have on the public. Common Sense was an emotional appeal to a population in which emotional tensions were high. Through discrediting Paine, elevating himself, and arguing both sides of the conflict, Inglis effectively emphasizes the need for the colonists to think logically and thoroughly before a war broke out.
Throughout the life of an individual most people would agree that dealing with tough conflict is an important part in growing as a person. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. Steven Galloway’s novel “The Cellist of Sarajevo” exemplifies that when an individual goes through a difficult circumstance they will often struggle because of the anger and fear they have manifested over time. The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive.
The critics who perceived this book's central theme to be teen-age angst miss the deep underlying theme of grief and bereavement. Ambrosio asks the question, "Is silence for a writer tantamount to suicide? Why does the wr...
The novel, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, is a neurological and psychological journal of Dr. Oliver Sacks’s patients. He describes each one of his patients illnesses into twenty-four short stories. These short stories are split into 4 parts: Losses, Excesses, Transports, and The World of the Simple.
Death is a striking image that sits heavily in the heart, however an image of tragedy in the daily live is a much heavier weight to carry. Children filling up bottles of water in a refugee camp are horrific but when the location is in Africa is anyone really surprised. Susan Sontag’s “double message” (263) from her essay on “Regarding the Pain of Others” is shown in the CNN.com article “U.N. declares famine in Somalia; makes urgent appeal to save lives” due to the known situation of poverty, corruption, and a weak government. In this essay, I will address first the image and its connection to Sontag via censorship, and the shock value of the photograph. I will then address how the article complicates the photograph. Finally, I will address how both the photograph and the article complicate Sontag’s “double message”
One of the greatest qualities of humanity is the ability to respond to the circumstances and surroundings one might find themselves in at any given time. Authors convey this quality into literature constantly with their novels and articles. “The Most Dangerous Game” is a realistic fiction short story written by Richard Connell. “The Most Dangerous Game” is a stunning short story on the human condition, the dangers of blood-thirsty hunters, and defining the true meaning of a civilized person. Connell’s wrote his novel during the time period wealthy individuals enjoyed hunting animals. TV shows, magazine articles, and even movies are based off Connell’s story. Another example of a novel that responds to the environment is James Hurst’s realistic fiction short story, “The Scarlet Ibis”. “The Scarlet Ibis” is a tragic, realistic fiction that describes the hazards of pride, the terrors of being disparate from others, and the qualities of true brotherly love. “The Scarlet Ibis” was written in the 1960’s when handicapped people were treated differently than normal people. An additional volume worth analyzing is Guy de Maupassant’s realistic fiction, “The Necklace”. “The Necklace” is a narrative about a covetous woman who dreams for impervious goals, and realizes that being prosperous is not always as elitist is as it is made out to be. In reality during periods of great danger or fear, humans occasionally experience a rush of adrenaline that allows them to accomplish otherwise impossible tasks such as mothers lifting cars off of their children. Therefore, the human condition has the ability to overpower common sense and control emotions when the situation at hand requires action.
Tragedy changes one drastically, whether it is in a negative or positive way. Something that used to be the norm, is no longer there. It has a ripple affect on the surrounding people. One person, one life, affects hundreds. Why does such a horrible thing happen? Is it just another case of being a victim of circumstance? Both of those questions are examined through the books The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Ordinary People by Judith Guest as they follow the lives two troubled teenage boys, Holden Caulfield and Conrad Jarrett. While some may believe that two books stylistically differ, ultimately they relate more through the mutual themes of depression and the way one copes with it, social acceptance, and family tragedies.
• AW has had some problems of her own; she was very depressed after an abortion in senior year at college. She slept with a razor under her pillow for three nights as she wanted to commit suicide. Instead she turned to writing and in a week she wrote the story “To Hell with Dying”. She only stopped writing to eat and sleep.
In the first chapter of “The Problem of Pain,” C.S. Lewis, the author, opens with an observation of the universe and of pain. He notes that the universe is a vast, cold, desolate, and lonely place and if there were really a God, he would not make a harsh universe like the one we live in. This is the reason why he denied Christianity for so long. Lewis also writes that pain exists on earth, and if God was a loving one, he would not allow us to feel pain.
We all have had a time in our lives when everything is going swell. But, what about the times in our lives when everything is broken, shattered, turned to ash. One must decide to fight or flight. I decided to fight my way back to being a whole human and bring peace back to my life. Without the literary device of poetry and lyric, I might as well not be here today. The pieces, “words Hurt”, “You and I”, “Caraphernelia,” “Dead and Buried”, and, “the road not taken”, have had a great impact on my life.
Tom Sawyer, a mischievous, brave, and daring boy that goes through adventures in love, murder, and treasure. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is about a boy maturing from a whimsical troublemaker into a caring young man. In the "conclusion" Mark Twain writes, "It being strictly a history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much farther without becoming a history of a man" Tom is now maturing throughout a span of adventures in love, treasure, and everyday life that make him more of an adult, then a boy.
The novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon is an inspiring story about Christopher Boone, the main character, and the protagonist. Christopher tries to investigate the mysterious death of the neighbor’s dog and learns some things along the way such as her mother’s “death”. A theme is a central idea that is not so universal that it can be applied to practically any book. This theme is expressed through Christopher’s ability to understand emotions, his intelligence, and persistence. The theme seen in this novel is that autism and disabilities cause fear, but he doesn’t let it affect him or hold him back
Coming out of the Great Depression, this generation was encouraged to be anything but depressed. In this book these two characters, although distinct in background, must deal with their problems, and face the consequences. The pressure to move on, as is human nature, eventually leads to a sadly fatal conclusion.
Life, it can be beautiful, happy, or sad. Life can be any emotion that you can think of. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser, puts us through all these emotions in showing us the extremes in happiness, sadness, anger, and many other emotions to show us what real life is like. To do this most accurately, Dreiser bases his two-book story on a true-life tale about a man and what his rage did to his life.
Unlike physical pain, mental pain is less obvious to the onlooker, but to the afflicted, it is often more difficult to bear. My parents and I have experienced the struggles of living with someone with a wounded spirit. My younger brother has struggled with self esteem, anxiety, and anger issues for as long as I can remember. In our society, mental pain is often seen with a negative connotation. Because there is no blood test or x-ray to diagnose it, many people do not see a true issue when a person struggles with mental pain, making it very difficult for a person to seek help for it. My hope is that one day psychological illnesses will be treated the same as cancer.