“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? “ I agree with John Steinbeck, I believe that the past matters. We can look back to our past and recognize our mistakes and the errors in our thought process to make progress and to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. We should always look at our history to realize and appreciate how far we have come as human beings. The past matters to me because it defines who we are today. I believe that everyone should be aware of their own history and also the heritage of their land. Too many people have sacrificed their lives for people to be ignorant of history.
Without the past what language would we be speaking today? What cultures would we represent? What kind
I. John Steinbeck used his personal experiences as a laborer to write many of his novels like Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.
...t create ourselves. That we owe what we are to the communities that helped form us”(Bellah et. al., P. 295). We have a long history in this country of others who gave and sacrificed so much so we could have our present. We must understand that life is to be shared, it is not a race whose only “goal is to he foremost” (Bellah et. al., P. 296). It is to be lived. We must be committed to those we love, and to our communities. Maybe the longing for nostalgia in this country can help to return to a time when family, friends, community, church and more were important and we all knew we were part of something greater than ourselves. We must however not live in the past, we must use the past to build and focus on the future.
The first focus of living is surviving. Therefore, it does not follow logical reasoning to explore other aspects and enhancements of life until one establishes a sense of security in one’s ability to survive. Survival starts with an individual’s ability to endure, and ultimately progresses to an entire species’ ability to subsist. Selfishness is often viewed as morally wrong, however it may be necessary for individuals to think of themselves before others, in order to put them in a position to be able to help the others. In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, this selfishness is demonstrated by the characters who are struggling to better their own lives; therefore, helping to better the lives of others is a secondary thought if it exists
“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.”
Notably, many philosophers and scholars believe that the past is a powerful stimulus that dictates a given country’s future. On the contrary, for some of them, the statement, “Do not allow yourself to be overawed by traditional beliefs and institutions. Slavish regard for the past prevents society from achieving a happier life,” seems very true. However, the past may not necessarily affect a society adversely. Indeed, philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Edmund Burke have conflicted thoughts on the impact on traditions on a community’s future since Kant and Marx seemed to support the statement mentioned above while Burke was more conservative with this idea and believed that the
Man must not only remember his past, but also choose to remember it as it really happened—for, to again quote Eliot, “What might have been is an abstraction" (175). Fantasizing about an abstract, idealized past will never give success i...
Curly and Lennie, two men that traveled together everywhere they went. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck describes friendship, dreams, and personality to describe Lennie and Curly adventures.
John Ernest Steinbeck Jr. was born February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. (The Biography Channel) His family was never wealthy, but they were middle-class, and his father John Ernest Steinbeck had several jobs to keep food on the table, and his mother Olive Hamilton was a school teacher. He was the third child of four children, and all of his siblings were girls. His father owned a feed-and-grain store, managed a flour shop, and was Monterrey County treasurer. (The Biography Channel) His father was a mason and his mother was a member of Eastern Star. (ANB) John Steinbeck sr. and Olive Hamilton were immigrants and were very rooted into the community; they established their identities this way. His parents believed it was good to expose their children to culture when they were little. They went to the theater often in San Francisco. His parents also had a variety of literature in the house for the children to read. Steinbeck’s biggest influence in his career was when he had been given a copy of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur at the age of nine. (Stephan) His mother and John Steinbeck's family lived in the "fertile agricultural valley,” and with that he formed an appreciation early for the Salinas Valley land, which he used in most of his later novels. (Wyatt) As a kid Steinbeck was shy and quite, but very smart. At the age of fifteen Steinbeck was "encouraged by his freshman English teacher to write," (ANB) and from then he knew he wanted to become a writer. He would often lock himself away in his bedroom and write. After high school he worked as a laborer in a sugar factory in Salinas, California, a laborer in mills, and a ranch hand. (Stephan)
refusal to play a literary role. He made him self as unpopular writer so he
Americans strive to obtain the American dream, but they fail to realize that it is our own dissatisfaction and anger that get in our way of keeping the American dream alive. John Steinbeck’s, “Paradox and Dream”, describes these paradoxes that linger in almost all Americans lives. Steinbeck shows how Americans believe in these things, but they contradict them by the actions they take or the words we say. He describes how Americans are dissatisfied, angry and intemperate. John Steinbeck portrayed a negative attitude towards Americans and their ideals by displaying how most are dissatisfied and angry, intemperate and opinionated, and believe in these certain things about ourselves that are not always true.
In The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck, Steinbeck discusses what the American dream meant for families in the 1960s. There are a few things involved in defining the American dream such as being happily married, having children, having a nice house of your own, and making a decent amount of money. Virtue, honesty, loyalty and equality. These elements represent values that exist in American society. However, these morals are undermined as Americans become more concerned with material wealth, than with the well-being of others. John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent examines the negative aspects of America's cash-crazed society, and how the acquisition of wealth does not always lead to happiness.
I agree with the popular saying that we reflect our past, because it is true our generation today is the way it is due to the past. Authors George Gascoigne, Thomas Lodge, and Richard Linche wrote poems that are a vivid example of this. In their poems And if I did, what then, Pluck the fruit and taste the pleasure, and The last so sweet, so balmy, so delicious all discuss issues that we face today even though they are in a different time period. These poems mainly debate the issue of being a rake, or a libertine, and the issue of sinning. In that time a libertine was considered an immoral person, someone who commits adultery or fornication, does bad things, someone who takes advantage
...vides remonstrations towards the American patriots who were against the British master. Throughout Americas history we have faced extreme hardships, epidemics, World War 1 and 2, and depressions, but America never longed to ceased to exist because of our fight that was embodied threw the words “Give me Liberty or give me death” (Henry) History isn’t defined as a list of facts, but a record if incredible principles and concepts that have swayed and motivated individuals in our present time.
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is a famous quote by George Santayana. Although the r...
History is the bridge that connects the past with the present. Without history, we have no future. The past gives value to our present. David C. McCullough stated, “History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are”. I agree with McCullough, history gives us a purpose. History allows us to investigate and interpret the past in order to see how we developed and where we came from. We can get an idea of what has influenced our past and present, and also what will shape our future. We can see what previous generations did and whether or not t...