Robert Cormier’s After The First Death tells the story of three young people, from completely different backgrounds, yet they find each other crossing paths tangled up in the same mess. Miro, one of these three young people, is a terrorist, trained to take the life of the bus driver on the bus which the terrorists were planning to hijack. Following a change of plans, Kate Forrester, was unfortunately the substitute driver for her uncle that day. Miro was reluctant to kill her, as he had thought that the bus driver would just be some older man who was close to death anyway, not a girl roughly the same age as himself. His lack of knowledge about the world, his innocence, led to his overly violent interpretation of the meaning of the word patriotism.
Innocence may be perceived as something wonderful, and something that people long for. In some cases, this is true. But not in Miro’s case. Miro, being fed countless forms of propaganda, had the innocence of a child, not knowing anything about common sense or the world, except to kill and destroy. He was told at a young age that he had to fight, and give his all, to regain control of his homeland that he hasn’t even been to, only heard stories of. Kate, another main character, was in shock and could not believe that innocence had turned a perfectly normal boy into a monster under such horrific circumstances. He did not understand the importance of his life and other’s lives, having no sympathy for those that he killed or giving a second thought to losing his own life. His innocence lead to his extreme form of patriotism, trying to get what he and others needed using violence and terror on innocent people. The other terrorists are no different, Artkin gave no second thought to the idea of having to kill any of the children. He says, “One hostage in peril is effective, sixteen hostages in peril is sixteen times more effective.”, and “Kill the children to show that the demands next time must be met.” Artkin only sees the children as pawns in the dangerous game they were playing with Inner Delta, instead of actual human beings with value and a life ahead of them.
The first close-to-death experience the narrator and his posse have involves a case of mistaken identity. The group wrongly identifies a lone car as that belonging to a mutual friend and flash their headlights in a
In May Miller’s Poem “Death is not Master” the persona explains that death is not the master that will increase the desperation but it is a way to become eternally calm. Many poems on the topic of death explain it as powerful thing that fears the existence of human beings, but Miller’s persona death is a way to achieve eternal serenity. She explains death as something that can end all the worldly tears, desires and tension and transform the human memory into a sculpture which is unaware of tensions. Miller’s persona believes that blocking death will be unfair as it will be a barrier to the everlasting happiness and calmness that lies inside the grave. Miller’s persona is an elaboration of Christian beliefs that death ends all worldly problems
Jerry Fensterman, in his essay "I See Why Others Choose to Die", talks about how he can understand why terminal ill people after so long in pain with no hope to cure choose to end their life sooner than expected. Fensterman, who was a dignose with cancer, says "I know now how a feeling, loving, rational person could choose death over life, could choose to relieve his suffering as well as that of his loved ones a few months earlier that would happen naturally." I agreed with the writers point of view, and I can also understand why someone would make this type of decisions. It is not only physically devastating for the whole family to go through this type of situations, but it could also be economically damaging, and not to mention the stress that is slowly draining everyone around.
“First They Killed My Father” bears upon a happy families world turning upside down when they had to evacuate from their beautiful home in Phnom Penh. The Ung family lived in an apartment building in the uppertown of Phnom Penh were the more wealthy people lived.Father, Sem Im Ung worked for the government so he earned enough money to support 7 of his children and his wife considering she doesn't work. The main character and also the author of this book tells the readers about her tough journey to survive the war.
Paul D was suspicious and tried to find out who the strange woman was. He did not believe that she came from the river and the story about the bridge as she claimed. In contrast, Denver was very excited to have her in the house and did not feel lonely anymore. The woman looked very sick, and Denver insisted on taking care of her. When the woman who called herself Beloved came to the house, Denver knew right away that she was her dead sister coming back to the family. Denver thought that Beloved came back to wait for their father. It gave her a reason to protect Beloved because she was worried that Sethe, her mother, might kill her again. At the same time Denver has a contrast view when she tried to make Beloved, stay away from Sethe because
As David Hufford said, in Beings Without Bodies, much of folk belief about spirits is found to be reasonable. This account is reported under his experience-centered theory. Hufford said much of the belief of spirits is reasonable as it is established on logical understanding from a person’s own experience. However, Hufford said not all beliefs are backed up by experience or even evidence. Some beliefs are made purely on faith. (Hufford p.11)
A Comparison of Two Accounts of Life After Death Materialism is the view that the body and mind are inseparable, and for there to be life after death then the body must be resurrected. This is much like the Christian view of life after death. John Hick was a materialist and he argued that, in certain circumstances, it would be possible that the dead could exist as themselves after death, if an exact replica were to appear. Hick uses thought experiments to show the person who dies in this world is the same person who is resurrected in the next. He uses examples of using a character named John Smith.
What if I told you that you’d be able to relive the fondest moments of your life as many times as you want in a dream world reality, would you believe me? This may seem far-fetched for some people, but if you take the time to read "The Soul Survives and Functions After Death” by H.H. Price, you’ll start to question your own beliefs about your soul and where it goes once death strikes. Price questions the nature of souls once the inevitable happens and states that the soul goes to another world, a Next World. The idea of the dream world I previously mentioned will make you question your very own beliefs about where your soul will go once life’s inevitable happens to you. So, is Price’s afterlife theory of the Next World really something to
In the meditative essay “A Matter of Life and Death” by Timothy Aubry, he reveals the meditation of marriage and mortality. With careful consideration of word choice, he creates a transition that sets forth an emotional connection with the reader before an authority of the physical world. Aubry begins his essay reflecting on a dream and recounts his past experiences- observant of the marriage that his parents once had, it becomes concerning for him seek what to expect for his own future. Throughout the story, Aubry inverts the pattern at the end, regaining his sense of reality. Therefore, he gives the essay an emotional connection with the reader in order to believe a larger-than-personal point. By using his own unpleasant experiences of illness and divorce, Aubry’s persona is identified through expressing himself as an apprehensive person to discuss the values he uncovers with marriage.
Thomas Nagel begins his collection of essays with a most intriguing discussion about death. Death being one of the most obviously important subjects of contemplation, Nagel takes an interesting approach as he tries to define the truth as to whether death is, or is not, a harm for that individual. Nagel does a brilliant job in attacking this issue from all sides and viewpoints, and it only makes sense that he does it this way in order to make his own observations more credible.
In Thomas Nagel’s “Death,” he questions whether death is a bad thing, if it is assumed that death is the permanent end of our existence. Besides addressing whether death is a bad thing, Nagel focuses on whether or not it is something that people should be fearful of. He also explores whether death is evil. Death is defined as permanent death, without any form of consciousness, while evil is defined as the deprivation of some quality or characteristic. In his conclusion, he reaffirms that conscious existence ends at death and that there is no subject to experience death and death ultimately deprives a person of life. Therefore, he states that Death actually deprives a person of conscious existence and the ability to experience. The ability to experience is open ended and future oriented. If a person cannot permanently experience in the future, it is a bad or an evil. A person is harmed by deprivation. Finally, he claims that death is an evil and a person is harmed even though the person does not experience the harm.
“But it is not the fear, observe, but the contemplation of death; not the instinctive shudder and struggle of self-preservation, but the deliberate measurement of the doom, which are great or sublime in feeling” (John Ruskin). Human beings never stop making efforts to explaining, understanding and exploring the meaning of the death, and death became an important topic in human’s literature. According to the scientific definition “death is the state of a thermodynamic bio-system in which that thermodynamic system cannot obtain non-spontaneously energy from the environment and organize non-spontaneously the energy obtained from the environment” (Nasif Nahle). Which means that all human beings fundamental biological systems are stop working after
The most important formation of the stages of grief was formulated by Dr: Elizabeth Keble –Ross in her book “On Death and Dying “Dr: Kubler-Ross wrote about the stages that dying person move to go the way as they come to ideas. However, all her stages have since been rents by the big grief community as a means of explaining the grief ideas. coming to different ideas with dying is certainly a lost experience and a work for grief, so there is credit to this rending and reason to become popular with stages of Dr: Keble –Ross on the contrary not all people would experience these stages of grief , or , if all are experienced , they won’t expect to happened in this specific order. This is a compare the contrast paper on Keble –Ross, model in its
Suicide in the Trenches is mainly about a young lad who used to be a
In Wislawa Szymborska’s poem, “On Death, without Exaggeration”, the idea of Death is assigned characteristics of Deaths waged war against numerous quantities of emerging life that, itself, destroys life. Szymborska grew up in Poland during the Second World War, she was surrounded by Death, in addition, the experiences she had helped her to cope with Death and remain hopeful. The poem seems to make the reader think Death is an inevitable part of life and in order to appreciate life one must accept Death. However, if you read closely in the last line of the second stanza, “which is always beside the point” (7), Death is revealed to be indifferent, not accepting. Szymborska uses persona, irony, and personification to create rich