Obsession is a popular theme in romantic works, mainly because it is an intense emotion that often defied or out right ignored logical reasoning. It is easy for romantic writers to portray a scientist, who is supposed to be cooly rational, as being obsessed with their experiment to the detriment of others, like Marie Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein. However, obsession being seen as a character flaw is not something restricted just to those types of characters nor is it only used by romantic writers. Tolkien shows this with Thorin's obsession with gold to the point of waging war in the Hobbit. Rowling does so with Voldemort’s various obsessions cause mass deaths, rips apart his own world, and leads to his own downfall. The general consensus is …show more content…
The people of Lake Town suffered as a direct result of the dwarves’ actions and they were only asking for recompense. And yet, because of his obsession, Thorin refuses to acknowledge this despite the fact that sharing the gold could have resulted in an alliance with the people of Lake Town. That is something the dwarves would have sorely needed to re-establish their kingdom, especially in the beginning when they had no resources. As time progresses, Thorin’s obsession only gets worse. His behavior becomes more destructive. He is willing to attack Bilbo over the Arkenstone. At the beginning of the Hobbit, Thorin is a good person. He is proud and perhaps a bit dismissive of non-dwarves, but a good person. His obsession with gold turns him into the kind of person to wage war on a group of people who had their homes demolished as a result of his …show more content…
A half heard prophecy of a potential threat, spoken by a women commonly thought of as a fraud, brought to him by someone desperate to prove himself to Voldemort. He spends the next year after hearing that prophecy hunting down the one that might have the potential to kill him. Moreover, the prophecy is set in motion by Voldemort trying to kill Harry. If he had just let it go and ignored the prophecy, Harry would have never been the chosen one and Dumbledore would have never figured out about his horcruxes. Harry would have been perfectly happy being a normal student. Voldemort’s fixation on the prophecy forced Harry into that role, and lead to Voldemort’s death. His obsession with the prophecy eventually leads to his downfall.
In both Voldemort and Thorin’s cases, their obsessions lead to their own and have catastrophic results for the people around them. Both result in a war that could have been avoided and a lot of senseless deaths. Tolkien and Rowling, and countless other writers, portray obsession as a negative trait that only brings
In society, most people have an obsession to some extent, these may include such things as a hobby – collecting antiques; or even as simple as having to have things a certain way. For others though, obsession has a different meaning, they might become obsessed with one special object, or possibly attaining a certain goal. They might go about achieving this goal no matter what the consequences to others might be. Mordecai Richler’s book the Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, illustrates one such case of obsession, the title character, Duddy Kravitz becomes obsessed with his grandfather’s saying, “ ‘ A man without land, is nothing.’”, thus starting Duddy on his quest to attain a piece of land. Throughout his quest, Duddy has no regard for the feelings or the relationships he destroys in the process, weather it in his family relations, business relations, or even his personal relations to those that are closest to him.
Preoccupations…are fixed ideas, not necessarily false (like delusions) but overvalued. They take on extraordinary importance and take up an ordinate amount of thought time. One idea often returns and returns…Characteristically, the worry grows and becomes unrealistic (par 16).
In “A Hunger”, “The Penal Colony”, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka succeeded in showing his individuals as obsessed with their profession; however their obsession caused their doom because society asks so much from an individual, only so much can be done. However, regardless of that, these individuals choose their work over themselves, and not even bad health or death can stop them. Because society places immures pressure on Kafka’s work obsessed character, they neglect their well-being and cause their own downfall.
The violent scene at the end of “The Hobbit” took place immediately before war was to break out between the dwarves and the men of Laketown. Thorin, the rightful “king under the mountain”, did not wish to part with any of his gold, not even in order to reward the men who had greatly assisted in the recovery of it. Along with the aide of his cousin, Dain, Thorin decided to fight off the men and their alliance, the wood-elves. Before the battle ...
The most prevalent theme in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is that of obsession. Throughout the novel there are constant reminders of the struggles that Victor Frankenstein and his monster have endured. Many of their problems are brought upon by themselves by an obsessive drive for knowledge, secrecy, fear, and ultimately revenge.
Obsessions are the unpleasant thoughts or impulses that cause the person with the disorder to have lots of anxiety and edginess. The thoughts may include things such as perfect order of things in a house, perfect hygiene, or the fear that they are going to hurt someone. Obsessions can be violent or sexual.
Obsession is preoccupation putting meaning to the object more than it should and only focusing on oneself and the object. It’s dreadful and reckless. Obsessed people start the day thinking about how object thinks of them and end the day wondering if object feels the same way as they do. Once you’re obsessed about one thing, all you care about is that one thing. It’s very common to misunderstand love and obsession. But I can say this with confidence, obsession is not a love.
Throughout the whole book, Thorin just displayed a complete lack of respect for human life. When Bard and the Elvenking asked for a share in the gold, Thorin would not even give them a measly twelfth of it to avoid war. Additionally, it would only have been fair to give them some of the treasure after all he put them through. That just shows how little he valued life and how much he valued money. A twelfth of that amount of gold would be a lot, but it is small compared to the eleven twelfths of it that he would get and would still be more than anyone could possibly need in their lifetime. Thorin also didn’t want to tell the Elvenking why they were wandering in the forests when they were captured. He was in jail a long, long time, and it all could have been avoided if he just told them their plans. At that point, he wasn’t even really invested in that treasure. He still wanted it and went all that way to get it, but he wasn’t even close to getting it yet. He could have just made a deal with the elves and split the treasure with them in exchange for their help, but he wouldn’t even do that. Instead, he kept it a secret and stayed in prison with the small hope they could get the treasure in addition to the small chance that Bilbo could help them escape, which he eventually did
It is good to be determined and passionate about the things that you are learning and doing, but it is not good to become obsessive about anything. In most cases obsession tends to lead people down the wrong path or cause them to make the wrong decisions in their life. One of the things that people used to be obsessed with was knowledge. This is because people knew so little about the world and about themselves. People were very curious about certain things and some decided to accidentally try things out which led to discoveries. But others decided to become obsessed about the subject that they were studying and destroy their lives in the process. One example is Frankenstein. He was a giant dumb smart person that was also obsessive about science
Thorin displays positive attributes such as honesty. Even though he places himself above others, he admits to his weaknesses and apologises for his wrongdoings. Thorin’s honesty is initially displayed in the forest of Mirkwood; “I should have thought it was thirty at least, but my eyes don’t see as well as they used a hundred years ago,” p177. This displays through dialogue that Thorin is willing to admit to weakness, and therefore not only being honest to his friends, but himself. Thorin puts his pride aside in order to yield useful and accurate information. Moreover, when Thorin puts his pride aside, he ultimately has a good and honest heart. Then, during then end of the novel when Thorin is on his deathbed, he states “I would take back my words and deeds at the gate,” p346, to Bilbo. This forgiveness, although Bilbo may not notice it himself, is Thorin admitting to himself that he is greedy and proud. As the dialogue continues, Thorin again admits that “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world,” p346. Tolkien’s use of the word “us” indicates that Thorin including himself in this grouping. It could seem that although Tolkien constructs Thorin as a proud and greedy character, when Thorin forgets his pride and greed, he becomes an ethical character.
The obsessions are persistent and constant thoughts, images or ideas that keep running through a person’s mind, even though they are meaningless and unwanted. Most of the time, these obsessions focus on unpleasant or unnerving themes. Common obsessions are the person may fear becoming dirty or contaminated, having an uncontrollable impulse to hurt or kill a loved one, or fear that a fire, car accident, or other disaster will occur.
The book is about a young boy named Harry Potter who lives with his non-magic-related relatives as a powerful, evil wizard named Lord Voldemort killed his parents, James and Lily. Lily, Harry’s mother sacrificed her life to protect her child from Voldemort. Voldemort had no motivation to kill Lily and was even willing to spare her life. This selfless act of love created a protective charm around Harry. After murdering James and Lily, Voldemort was already in a weakened state and when his killing curse backfired due to the protective charm, a part of his soul detached itself from Voldemort and got latched onto Harry. Voldemort lost his powers and became a spirit until he found his body back. The soul that got latched onto Harry left a scar on Harry’s forehead, and since he didn’t die, he was known as the boy who lived. As he grows up, he does not know about his magical heritage and on his 11th birthday, he finds out about his magical heritage as he starts developing magical abilities. Then, he gets accepted to a wizarding school named, Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry. He quickly becomes friends with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley and they soon come face to face with Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort tries to steal the sorcerer's stone and return to power but in the end, Harry and his friends manage to defeat Lord Voldemort. So at the moment, Harry and his friends are
The manipulative side of human behaviour and the inherent human tendency towards manipulation in light of the dark side of love is evident in all three texts. This is shown even though texts are products of different social contexts. Darkness has connotations of the evil and the unknown, and arguably, the dark side of love is ‘above all’ the way in which jealousy and obsession take control of a person, which normally leads to disaster. The dark side of love manifests itself to various degrees throughout all texts, and within each text someone is doomed, as they fall victim to their own dark side of love: Othello in Othello, The narrator in Rebecca, and Ted Hughes in Birthday Letters.
From the start, Thor arms in the opposite of evil, he is swift in defense of his friends and those whom he has sworn to protect. After his banishment from Asgard, he understands about wisdom in leadership, sacrifices, the importance of his decisions and maintaining peace between Jotuheim and Asgard. He sacrifices his life to the safety of the people. His character traits were portrayed the same way as Iron Man- who appears to be selfish, proud yet, in the end, he decided to devote his own life to save the Earth as Thor confront the killing machine sent by Loki without any godly
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was written by J. K. Rowling and is the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series. The book is about a seventeen-year-old wizard, named Harry Potter, who has to travel all over England to find things that will help him defeat the evil wizard, Lord Voldomort. The main theme/moral of the entire series is good will always triumphs over evil. In every book, even when it looks like evil is going to win, good always triumphs in the end.