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video Games are addictive essay
video Games are addictive essay
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“When all else fails, there is always delusion” (Conan Obrian). People can only have so much tragedy in their lives before they need an escape, but an escape only lasts so long and they have to face reality sooner or later. Life goes on with or without you and you can’t escape it. You can’t hide from reality. This theme is seen in Mike Miginnis “Navigators” and other literary works such as Arthur Miller’s “The Death of a Salesman”. It can also be seen in everyday life when people play video games or use drugs to forget their problems.
Mike Miginnis’ “Navigators” is about a boy named Josh and his dad Dustin. They bond with each other by playing a video game called the “Legend of Silence”. The game is about a queen who goes on a quest to reach Nirvana. This game is different than most because as she gets further in the game she gets “power ups” but instead of making her more powerful they make her weaker. Throughout the game they become more and more obsessed with it, they eventually neglect things needed in everyday life. The video game parallels their own life. They are having a hard time making ends meet; and just like the main character in their video game, as their story goes on they get weaker too. Dustin eventually cuts off the gas to save money, but when he tells Josh this he says that they have “more money to play with” (Miginnis 103), referring to their video game. As they continue to play their game the main character continues to get weaker, and so do Josh and his father. They have to move into a smaller apartment so the rent will be cheaper. Eventually they stop taking care of themselves which is noted when in the store, “it has been nearly a month since they had done the laundry” (Miginnis 102). It is also implied ...
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...’s going on won’t make it go away. They often end up in a worse situation than when they started using the drugs or alcohol. They may start off using drugs or alcohol to escape reality; but in the end it only hurts them even more.
Many people try to escape reality, but it will never work. It will either end up hurting them more in the process like in the story “ Navigators” or hurting the people around them like in ”Death of a Salesman”. Life is hard, and sometimes people need a break from the stress of it. But life keeps on moving whether you’re active in it or not. You can’t permanently escape from reality.
Works Cited
Miller, Arthur, and Gerald Clifford Weales. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. print.
Mginnnis Mike.“Navigators”. Hobart. 12th edition. Ed. Aaron Burch. Berkley CA: Small Press Distribution: 2011. 97-107. Print.
Throughout time philosophers have strived to cultivate one’s soul. Although philosophers all share the goal of obtaining a well-balanced soul, they don’t necessarily agree on the technicalities of how to fulfill this concept. Be it the teachings of Plato, Frederick Nietzsche, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, or the plethora of other philosophers available, one thing is always constant. Philosophers seek transcendence in seclusion. This seclusive lifestyle is liberating to one’s soul. The concept of seeking transcendence through seclusion is visible in many novels today. Two of the more predominant novels being, The Road by author Cormac McCarthy and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It is said that no man is an island, and no man stands alone. Hence, true human existence can not prevail positively or productively without the dynamics of society. Yet, this concept is very much a double-edged sword . Just as much as man needs to exist in society and needs the support and sense of belonging, too much social pressures can also become a stifling cocoon of fantasies and stereotypes that surround him. He becomes confined to the prototype of who or what he is expected to be. Thus, because society is often blinded by the realms of the world, its impositions in turn cripples humanity. If he does not conform, he becomes a social out cast, excluded and excommunicated from the fabric of life. The theme alienation in a small society is depicted primarily through setting by both authors Conrad and Kafka in Metamorphosis and Heart of Darkness. This depiction demonstrates how this isolation has a negative impact on the individual and ultimately leads to his destruction and decadence.
escaping from it. From the moment you wake until you fall asleep you are confronted with media. Almost
Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print. Death of a Salesman. Dir. Volker Schlöndorff.
In the beginning of The Ascent, Jared is seen as an imaginative and innocent child, albeit a little lonely. However, the tone dramatically shifts when Jared discovers the plane wreck and “sit[s] in the back seat [for] two hours, though [to him] it seem[s] only a few minutes” (Rash 281). By finding comfort with dead people, it is clear that Jared is emotionally disturbed. He isolates himself from others by depending on his imagination to make up for his lack of company. This is further exemplified when Jared watches his parents “pas[s] the pipe back and forth… want[ing] to go back to the plane” (Rash 284). Rather than stay with his drug-abusive and neglectful parents during Christmas time, Jared desires to escape to the place where he can be alone with just his imagination. According to Robert Stanley Martin’s review of the short story, “[t]he plane becomes to [Jared] what the drugs are to his parents: a place to escape that he never wants to leave, and which he always longs to return.” The plane and drugs in the short story are extreme examples of common forms of escapism used by humans every day. People love to take a mental and emotional break from reality in the form of vacations and hobbies. However, when these examples of escapism are vastly more important to individuals that actuality, they can become “numb inside the vehicles of their escape” (Martin). This is very detrimental to one’s emotional stability as an individual will lose his perception of the real world. At the end of The Ascent, when visiting the plane for the final time, Jared has escaped so far from reality that he imagines the plane “ha[s] taken off” (Rash 287). He stays in the plane for so long that “after a while he began to shiver but after a longer while he was no longer cold”, demonstrating his eventual death from hypothermia (Rash 287).
Gioia, Dana, and X.J. Kennedy. "Death of a Salesman" Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, Compact Edition, Interactive Edition. 5th ed. New York: Pearson; Longman Publishing, 2007. 1212-1280. Print.
Miller, Arthur. “Death of a Salesman”. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Dana Gioia and X.J. Kennedy.10th Ed. New York: Pearson, 2007.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Seventh Edition. X.J. Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999. 1636-1707.
Eisinger, Chester E. "Critical Readings: Focus on Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman: The Wrong Dreams." Critical Insights: Death of a Salesman (2010): 93-105.
Foster, Richard J. (Confusion and Tragedy: The Failure of Miller's 'Salesman' (1959) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 26:316
How does a person escape from reality? Reading deep into a good book? Listening to a song that takes one to a different place? Or sleeping into a dimension in which one does not think at all? Every person has one way or another to help him escape. Young Conradin’s was imagination. But, his was no ordinary imagination. For a ten-year-old, his imagination was very vivid. Was it really his imagination though? Or were the things he thought up a reality?
Death of a salesman. : McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print. The. "
There is no escape. It encompasses every factor of the modern American lifestyle. It all begins with "The American Dream," in which everyone strives to become part of the ideal, the obsession, that supposedly defines how happiness can be obtained. But happiness is not, contrary to the beliefs of the American Dreamers, measured on a checklist including 2.5 kids, 1 dog, 1 cat, quaint house in suburbs, white picket fence, 2 car garage, freshly mowed lawn, etc. That image is a facade over the ever-crumbling ashheaps of our world. It is impossible to measure one's life or happiness on a scale of coffee spoons, cars, or annual income, but people continue to plug away like machines for no other reason than to make the money that they honestly believe will bring them true happiness. This idea is everywhere, leaving much of America longing for a life that does not exist and working toward a goal that will never be reached.
Escapism is often looked upon negatively in our society. Many people understand it as the inability to cope with or face the realities in our world. But escapism finds many different forms, from extreme sloth to the ultimate in healthy living to the devastation of heroin addiction. In its simplicity escapism is nothing more than offering an escape from our own consciousness by heightening the sense of self, giving to us a feeling of aliveness.
Absurdity is a core theme of existentialist philosophy. One enters the world with absolute freedom, but at the same time, one is born into restrictive historical circumstances that narrow what one can do with that freedom (Six Basic Themes). Wilhelm observes many absurdities. For example, when he helps Mr. Rappaport find his way to the cigar store, he notices that old men who are rich have no practical use for the money. Tommy believes that “They don’t need therefore they have. I need, therefore I don’t have” (Bellow, 97). Wilhelm is disgusted by materialism and wishes that people didn’t care about superficial goals in life such as financial gain. To him, people only think about money. This belief creates feelings of isolation and alienation; these emotions are necessary consequences of living in the modern world (IEP). Tommy’s worldly failures further increase his sense of estrangement. He views himself as a failed student, actor, son, husband, and father. Wilhelm’s dad, Dr. Adler, represents what society admires - a hard working, wealthy doctor of medicine. He serves as a foil to Wilhelm in that his success highlights Wilhelm’s failure. Tommy knows he does not belong in modern society because he abhors its