When we find the truth for some abnormal dilemma, we often find the consequence of our actions to be too overbearing for us to handle. However, the truth is what helps someone discover who he or she is. In Philip Roth’s, The Counterlife, is about various narrative perspectives revolving around Nathan Zuckerman, one of the main characters in the novel. The Netflix series, Easy in the episode, “Art and Life”, is about an author who discovers the irony in his work with modern times. In the film, Philomena, a disgraced reporter helps a faithful old woman find to her long-lost son. The characters in these works of art come to share one common quest. These characters pursue the truth no matter the risk to discover themselves.
In Philip Roth’s, The
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He does this by thinking about alternate realities of “what ifs” to help rationalize his actions in return, find justification for those said actions. One would like to say he accepted the beautiful and the terrible through seeking through these possible outcomes. Zuckerman also discusses how he is not alone by explaining, “the treacherous imagination is everybody’s maker—we are all the invention of each other, everybody a conjuration conjuring up everyone else. We are all each other’s authors” (Roth 145). The notion that different people have different stories about the same event or person which Roth creates examples throughout the novel such as Henry. In the first chapter of the novel, Carol, Henry’s wife, believed he sought out the dreaded operation to recover his manhood for the sake of their marriage but the truth that Nathan found was that he only went through with the operation to continue his affair with his assistant. By doing this, Roth fashioned out how different people have a different narrative perspective on those around them with the truth being altered hardly at all or the opposite. These perspectives branch out into their own stories and with those stories, truths. In the article, “Success in Circuit Lies: Philip Roth’s Recent Explorations of American Jewish Identity”, Sylvia Fishman analyzes Roth’s creation of identities by comparing the Jewish identity. Fisman expresses, “Jewish characters in The Counterlife, personal identity is intimately tied up in Jewish identity...the good sibling or the bad sibling in the family, the brother who has died or the brother who survived, the Jew who emigrated to Israel or the Jew who stayed home in America?” (Fisman 140). Fishman connects the narrative perspectives of truth by describing the Jewish
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Clover, the main character in the story The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson, Clover grows up, disobeys her mom, and makes a new friend. I think the theme of the story The Other Side is courageous because Annie and Clover are both kind to each other, they accept each other, and they are both brave.
Clive Barker, the author of The Thief of Always, writes a fantasy about Harvey(the main character) taken into into a place full of illusions. Soon he finds out that there was this horrible Hood that had taken his precious time and almost has eaten his soul. So, Harvey then tries to destroy this evil Hood who ends up to be the oh so perfect house. Hood is evil and different ways he is evil. There are many things that makes someone or something truly evil. Hood is ultimately evil. These are the things that make him who or what he is. Evil is significant to most stories because that is the major conflict. The antagonist, Hood, does a really good job of being the bad guy. Usually it’s a person who is has some kind of kindness inside,
In a country like the United States of America, with a history of every individual having an equal opportunity to reach their dreams, it becomes harder and harder to grasp the reality that equal opportunity is diminishing as the years go on. The book Our Kids by Robert Putnam illustrates this reality and compares life during the 1950’s and today’s society and how it has gradually gotten to a point of inequality. In particular, he goes into two touching stories, one that shows the changes in the communities we live in and another that illustrates the change of family structure. In the end he shows how both stories contribute to the American dream slipping away from our hands.
These two novels spoke about real powerful momentous events that occur in the authors’ lives. The authors emerged from the shadows and transformed their mishaps into motivation of overcoming life’s hardships. These two stories exemplify ways of overcoming Life’s hardships and finding sense of oneself. These authors break their vows of silence to prove the beauty of a broken person. They both converse on racial discrimination, relationships with God, & coming into themselves.
“Often fear of one evil leads us into a worse”(Despreaux). Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux is saying that fear consumes oneself and often times results in a worse fate. William Golding shares a similar viewpoint in his novel Lord of the Flies. A group of boys devastatingly land on a deserted island. Ralph and his friend Piggy form a group. Slowly, they become increasingly fearful. Then a boy named Jack rebels and forms his own tribe with a few boys such as Roger and Bill. Many things such as their environment, personalities and their own minds contribute to their change. Eventually, many of the boys revert to their inherently evil nature and become savage and only two boys remain civilized. The boys deal with many trials, including each other, and true colors show. In the end they are being rescued, but too much is lost. Their innocence is forever lost along with the lives Simon, a peaceful boy, and an intelligent boy, Piggy. Throughout the novel, Golding uses symbolism and characterization to show that savagery and evil are a direct effect of fear.
Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone should stay in Sterling High School’s English 4 curriculum because it teaches the reader that recovering from a horrible situation is possible, also Beah’s complex literal devices he uses to express his situation opens it up to the mind of a more experienced reader.
Robin Cochrane Mrs. Schroder AP Literature and Composition 3 January 2018 The Awakening 1999 Prompt In one’s lifetime, he or she may face an internal struggle. Perhaps the struggle lies in a difficult choice between right and wrong. Perhaps it lies in a decision between want and need.
...t is the Rorschach test of what is inside of a person. One work can touch or go unnoticed by its audience; it projects their “secret lives” (159).
Poverty and homelessness are often, intertwined with the idea of gross mentality. illness and innate evil. In urban areas all across the United States, just like that of Seattle. in Sherman Alexie’s New Yorker piece, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the downtrodden. are stereotyped as vicious addicts who would rob a child of its last penny if it meant a bottle of whiskey.
Ambiguity in literature after World War II reflects and explores issues of self and society. These two ideas often work against each other instead of coexisting to form a struggle-free existence. J. D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, and Richard Heller illustrate this struggle with their works. These authors explore ambiguity through different characters that experience the world in different ways. Identity, while it is an easy concept, can be difficult to attain. These authors seek out ambiguity with the human experience, coming to different conclusions. Ambiguity becomes a vehicle through which we can attempt to define humanity. J. D. Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye, Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Ball Jar, and Richard Heller’s novel, Catch 22 explore ambiguity experienced through an attempt to find self. Each experience is unique, incapable of fitting a generic mold created by society.
Escaping poverty was one of the themes of “A Raisin in the Sun.” The family’s chance of escape becomes a reality when a $10,000 check arrives in the mail. Everyone is wanting to spend their money for their own dream, each with their own way of escaping poverty. Walter believes that investing all the money into the liquor store will put the family higher in the ranks while earning them more income, therefore they would no longer be poverty-stricken. He believes money is everything and wants his family to have the best. This can be seen when he tells his son, “[without even looking at his son, still staring hard at his wife] In fact, here’s another fifty cents…Buy yourself some fruit today – or take a taxicab to school or something!” (pg 1.1.59).
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
Rosenberg J.C. Parallels: The Morality Play Everyman And Selected Tales. UMI DISSERTATION PUBLISHING. 2011. Print.
...ch as time, dates, and the exact relationships between the different characters are is not spelled out. This active involvement of the viewer is necessary for the work of art to stand on its own. This takes the challenge thrown out by modernists to reject easy conventions and make new ones, and pushes it further to the point where conventions become a joke. Those who understand the references get the joke, and this creates a new kind of meaning beyond the surface meaning of the narrative.
Though Wilde wrote in the preface to this book that " To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim", we can still trace the shadow of the author himself in all of the three major characters.