fulfillment is what people live for, without it how can a person live? A failed search for self-fulfillment often leads to death. Demonstrated in A Tale of Two Cites, Hamlet, and A Death of a Salesman, each novel includes one character that struggles to fulfill his life, which results in death. Self-fulfillment can include being loved, wealthy, happiness, remembered, respected, or even a being hero. Sadly if none of these objectives is met, the character seems to think death is the only way option. “Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so” as said by Charles DeGaulle, relates to each character in the three novels that they were never determined to improve their life.
The first example of failed self-fulfillment resulting in death is Willy Loman’s from the novel A Death of a Salesman. Loman fails to be “well-liked” and also fails to provide for his family and decides that the only way to provide for them is to commit suicide so they can collect the insurance money. Loman spent most of his life trying to convince his family that he is the best in the business and he wants his sons, Biff and Happy to be the same. Willy tells his sons that with his success he’ll be “Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not -- liked. He's liked, but he's not -- well liked.”(Miller, I.iii) Little do Biff and Happy know, that their father isn’t liked at all, he’s just trying to fulfill one of his goals in life, being “well-liked”. Later when Loman is fired from his job he starts to think about all the hard work he’s contributed to wanting to become successful and then concludes that, “Funny, y'know? After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”(Miller, II.iv) Now Willy starts to see death as the only way to provide for his family, but he also believes that with his death, he’ll be able to prove to others that he was “well liked” because his funeral will be massive.
”Oh, Ben, that's the whole beauty of it! I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like -- like an appointment! This would not be another damned-fool appointment, Ben, and it changes all the aspects.
In the short story “Fighter” by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is experiencing a man vs. self-conflict. Billy, the main character, is having trouble deciding in his mind what is best in life for himself and his family’s morale and well-being. In the beginning of the story, Billy had a flashback of when he was in high school. However, Billy was a very poor student and was even expected to fail school. “Billy remembered standing in the back of the room at Junior High School 271, not being allowed to sit down until he had brought his mother in to see the teacher. ‘What are you wasting your time for?’ the guidance counselor asked him. ‘You think it’s going to be easy out there? That was the last day Billy had gone to school” (Myers 35).
While everyone is legally intitled to the pursuit of happiness, the truth of the matter is that very few ever achieve it. Ones morals, standards, conscious, or perhaps even fate, keep them from accepting a pure form of satisfaction. While a person can search and struggle their entire life for happiness, the truth of the matter is, that they will never be happy with what they have infront of them. The character Ethan, portrayed in Edith Whartons novel, Ethan Frome, is emotionally weak, he battles constantly with what he wants, how to get it, and what is ethically right. Ethan was obligated to care for his wife Zeena until death, but his misguided decisions lead him to be concerned only with his immediate happiness. Much like Ethan in Ethan Frome, people who concentrate on personal happiness, without factoring in personal responsibility, set themselves up for a painful reality check.
Taylor propose the cultural significance of graffiti by exploring its history and context of ancient graffiti
The question asked by Hamlet “To be, or not to be?” (III.i.57.) analyzes the deeper thoughts of the young prince of Denmark. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the battle between living life or dying runs repeatedly through Hamlet’s head. In this famous soliloquy, Hamlet ponders the feelings going through his head, during his monologue, on whether he should live with the disruptions in his life or end it all at once. Hamlet’s life, both fulfilling and depressing, made him act out more when it came to interacting with other people. With all the people who admired him, he still managed to push everyone away using his sarcastic antics to degrade them intentionally. Not only does he portray this type of personality to people, but the change in so
It goes without saying that we all react to the experiences that we have. What differs from person to person is how those experiences affect our being and what each of us takes from those experiences and how we apply it to our lives from that point on. We see this happening not only in our own lives, but also in literature. The characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth and those from Milton’s Paradise Lost show, through their conflicts, that the experiences that they are exposed to affect their lives in a negative way. In all three of these pieces of literature, the reactions the characters have to their experiences are what bring about their ultimate demise. Unfortunately, these characters don’t realize the error of their actions until it’s too late, but we, as the audience, can learn from the mistakes we see the characters make in Hamlet, Macbeth and Paradise Lost.
One of the most famous Shakespearean lines-"To be or not to be, that is the question” is found in Hamlet, spoken by the title character himself. While this is the most obvious reference that Hamlet makes to this own philosophy, Hamlet makes frequent proclamations about his stifled life throughout the play. Hamlet views his life in a negative manner, to the point where he finds himself contemplating whether or not to end his own life. Hamlet does not value his life, which causes him to become flustered with himself and his lack of action. Therefore, demonstrating that Hamlet does not value his life as one should.
In the famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet examines the power of death by suicide. The powerful words of “to be or not to be” question whether to live or not to live. Hamlet weighs the morality of “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer” or to end one’s life. In comparison, death is like sleep, a way to relieve the pain and suffering. Hamlet thinks death is the desirable course, but he worries about the uncertainty of afterlife. After Hamlet’s realization of the afterlife, he reconfigures his metaphor to include dreaming. It is the fear of the afterlife that prevents people from ending their pain with suicide. Hamlet finds i...
In Hamlet, Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, but wonders whether the struggle of living and carrying through with his plans is worth the hardships, or if death is a better option. Shakespeare writes a soliloquy where Hamlet discusses with himself whether he should live or die. Shakespeare discusses the idea of suicide through metaphors, rhetorical questions, and repetition until Hamlet decides that he is too afraid of death to commit suicide.
DeNotto, Michael. "Street art and graffiti." College & Research Libraries News Association of College & Research Libraries. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 May 2014.
Graffiti by dictionary definition is writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place. One form of graffiti is tagging. Tagging is a quick writing that can be defined by five distinctive features, “simplicity, location, permanence, opportunism and creative expression,”(Russel, 2008, p. 89). This is used when individuals or gang members are trying to tag in their area and proclaim territory (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2006). A common form of graffiti is hip-hop tagging which originated in the 1970s.The second form of graffiti is graffiti art. At first glance it would seem that graffiti art is more complex than graffiti tagging. While a main feature of tagging is opportunity--how fast can the artist tag and not be caught?--, this is not the case for graffiti art (Austin, 2010, p. 35). It is usually a picture or a composition of some sort, often referred to as masterpieces or pieces for short in graffiti culture (Rahn, 2002). In a masterpiece artists plan the composition and the ideal location where their vision can be achieved. A third form of graffiti is a throw-up which is one step higher than tagging and involves only lettering and two colors. It is more difficult than tagging but not as complex as graffiti art (Rahn, 2002). The different types and style of graffiti can be very confusing, but a way that the different styles can
Going back to a few decades ago, when an affair occurred in a marriage, couples were more likely to resolve their issue to overcome infidelity. They put more effort into working through issues instead of immediately throwing in the towel. Now flash forward. In today's society an affair is “ a death by a thousand cuts” (Perel). What does that mean? When a partner in a relationship makes the decision to be unfaithful, it hurts the significant other to the point that they lose their self- identity. The partner may start to question who they are or what they believe. They'll start to blame themselves for their significant other cheating. Saying they aren't good enough for that person or that they haven't been doing enough to ensure their happiness. When in reality it's no ones fault for the cheating except for the cheater. No matter how hard times get, couples made a promise to one another and working through their issues is the priority. You should always work through their issues before resorting to other options. The moral option would be to end the relationship before starting up a new
Throughout time, death has been viewed in a negative light. In general, it is an event to be mourned and is seen by some as the end to existence. People do not usually seek death as an answer to their problems. In various pieces of literature, however, suicide is contemplated by the characters as the only solution to the pain and grief that they experience.
quote: "For the secret of man's being is not only to live... but to live for something
Humans are social beings, we want to know and to be known as well as we desire to be understood and be heard by other people. Therefore we choose different ways to express ourselves and make our statements. Graffiti is one of the main uncurbed ways to do it which makes it one of the most discussed topics. While some people consider it as art some people call it just “stain” or “vandalism”. Leonard Kriegel emphasizes his negative thoughts and experiences in his article titled “Tunnel Notes of a New Yorker”. However because of he had traumatic childhood memory, he is being too emotional and personal in his article. For this reason he loses his credibility in his words. Although I think that graffiti is a way to express ourselves freely and it includes artistic value it is undeniable that respectively it affects society and environment in a negative way, it violates the law, and cause the decline of the urban civility.
Truth of oneself makes it visible when faced with absurd events in life where all ethical issues fade away. One cannot always pinpoint to a specific trait or what the core essence they discover, but it is often described as “finding one’s self”. In religious context, the essential self would be regarded as soul. Whereas, for some there is no such concept as self that exists since they believe that humans are just animals caught in the mechanistic world. However, modern philosophy sheds a positive light and tries to prove the existence of a self. Modern philosophers, Descartes and Hume in particular, draw upon the notion of the transcendental self, thinking self, and the empirical self, self of public life. Hume’s bundle theory serves as a distinction between these two notions here and even when both of these conception in their distinction make valid points, neither of them is more accurate.