Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Sophie’s World Analysis
Sophie’s World is a book by Norwegian author Jostien Gaarder which is an introduction and a history of Philosophy novel. It is set in the 1990’s in Norway and follows Sophie Amundsen as she embarks on a journey to learn about the various Philosophers and their projects with a man named Alberto Knox, who was the one that sent Sophie the letter with the following questions: “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” along with a letter to a girl named Hilde Moller Knag from Hilde’s dad that, according to the letter, should be of Sophie’s care.
The story starts off with Sophie and her friend Joanna walking home from school talking about robot and how Joanna thinks that the human is kind of like a robot itself; although, Sophie doesn’t really agree with her. This for me only shows how much Sophie thinks more different around those around her and that is a sign of how she can openly take opinions and the theories of the Philosophers that came her way.
After the two friends part ways, Sophie found pieces of paper with the questions “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” in their mailbox. The questions baffle Sophie and baffle me as WELL, who wouldn’t be when you are just fourteen years old- almost
…show more content…
Alberto also points out, in a very detailed way, that even though they were just part of the Major’s imagination that maybe, the Major and Hilde were just a part of somebody else’s imagination as well. This, for me, overshadows that fact that it is true because the Major is telling Hilde about Alberto telling Sophie about the theories of Berkeley and Schelling and the Romantics about existence being only in the mind, when in truth is, Jostein Gaarder, the author is telling me, the reader about all of
The Emancipation of the once enslaved African American was the first stepping stone to the America that we know of today. Emancipation did not, however automatically equate to equality, as many will read from the awe-inspiring novel Passing Strange written by the talented Martha Sandweiss. The book gives us, at first glance, a seemingly tall tale of love, deception, and social importance that color played into the lives of all Americans post-emancipation. The ambiguity that King, the protagonist, so elegantly played into his daily life is unraveled, allowing a backstage view of the very paradox that was Charles King’s life.
In Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel”, she analyzes the homosocial nature of men as she tries to discover the causes behind sexism and to find out “why men who oppose women’s progress are so angry” (Faludi, 72). The main subject of her reading is the all boys college named the Citadel and its vehement opposition to admitting a female into its ranks. The boys become aggressive and angry about the thought of an independent and unique woman becoming a part of their student body. The thought of it threatens the gendering society established within the Citadel where the boys rely on each other to establish their own gender identities. Gender identities rely a lot upon the shaky foundation of the social dominance of one sex over the other. In today’s
In the novel Station Eleven the author Emily St. John Mandel uses characters and different situations throughout the book to show us how humans are able to resilience.
In City of Dreadful Delight, Judith Walkowitz effortlessly weaves tales of sexual danger and more significantly, stories of the overt tension between the classes, during the months when Jack the Ripper, the serial murderer who brutally killed five women, all of them prostitutes, terrorized the city. The book tells the story of western male chauvinism that was prevalent in Victorian London not from the point of view not of the gazer, but rather of the object. Walkowitz argues that the press coverage of the murders served to construct a discourse of heterosexuality in which women were seen as passive victims and sexuality was associated with male violence. Much of City of Dreadful Delight explores the cultural construction and reconstruction of class and sexuality that preceded the Ripper murders. Walkowitz successfully investigates the discourses that took place after the fact and prior social frameworks that made the Ripper-inspired male violence and female passivity model possible and popular.
The unveiling of a piece of artwork symbolises the gradual revelation of the girl’s feelings. At the beginning of the text she seems to have no emotions, “Live. Survive. They’re the same thing” and “she thought the thoughts of a machine.” She is portrayed as robot-like and is not in possession of feelings or vulnerability. However, over the course of the story, she progressively gives in to her overwhelming, pressing emotions. “She took off her watch and bikini and lay in the sun” and “She ran naked down to the water.” This can be perceived as the beginning of the exposing of her emotion; her nakedness introduces a sense of vulnerability, a quality not associated with machines. In addition, the leaving behind of her watch reinforces the idea of the deterioration of her ‘robotness’. The watch is a symbol of time and regulation, the girl choosing to abandon it, represents her no longer needing to rely on regulation and control. By the end of the story, her true emotions had surfaced, “No, you old bitch” and “She cut through the water and filled up cold with anger”. She is no longer machine–like and automatic. This final display of emotion is represented through the uncovering of the artwork. The man whom is uncovering the piece symbolises the mother. It essentially was the girl’s mother who filled her daughter’s head with her “stupid, recurring statements” and as a result, emotion. Furthermore, the exposure of her emotions coinciding with her death implies that, although emotions are stereotyped as something beautiful to share, her emotions were engulfing and devastating. In conclusion, the disintegrating of her ‘robot-like’ armor is represented through the uncovering of a piece of artwork.
Laura Deeb’s An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon seeks to rectify post-9/11 notions of political Islam as anti-modern and incongruous with Western formulations of secular modernity. Specifically, Deeb is writing in opposition to a Weberian characterization of modern secular Western societies as the development of bureaucracies through social rationalization and disenchantment. Within this Weberian framework Deeb asserts that Shia communities are in-part modern because of the development of beuorocratic institutions to govern and regulate religious practice. However, Deeb makes a stronger argument oriented towards dislodging the assumptions "that Islamism is static and monolithic, and that
The science fiction novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman has a central idea, being ‘life’. This novel opens up our ideas to when a human’s life actually begins which is a sensitive topic for most people. This is a concept that everyone has their own opinions on usually based on the way you were raised; however this book opens up these ideas and decisions for you to make. It relates to abortion and the controversy over it. One example of how Shusterman gets us to think about life is when Connor (one of the main characters) is in a crate with three other unwinds. They are discussing life and what happens after you are unwound. In reality we know very little about life so we come up with our own conclusions. This unwinding experience that Connor Lassiter has really changes who he is as a person and his outlook on life.
In the featured article, “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy,” the author, Judith Butler, writes about her views on what it means to be considered human in society. Butler describes to us the importance of connecting with others helps us obtain the faculties to feel, and become intimate through our will to become vulnerable. Butler contends that with the power of vulnerability, the rolls pertaining to humanity, grief, and violence, are what allows us to be acknowledged as worthy.
Gay male, lesbian, and transsexual networks/communities, and cultural practices often had their own differences that coincided with meshing similarities. From the late 1940s to the 1960s, these identities were shaped through experiences of “the closet” and living a “double life,” among other factors. Alan Berubé explores the war’s impact on homosexual identity, speaking for both gay males and lesbians in “Marching to a Different Drummer: Lesbian and Gay GIs in World War II.” In “We Walk Alone,” Ann Aldrich helps identify the varying types of lesbians, addressing their intimate relationships with each other that are becoming more visible. Harry Benjamin touches more on the medical and scientific side of transsexualism and the obvious fact that
In addition, fearing the experience of failure enables us to feel vulnerable but vulnerability is the birth place of innovation, creativity, and change. Failure takes a hold of most people but regularly do they see it as a chance to learn and react. They step aside from the lessons that they play and give up. But in The Alchemist “The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” (Coelho 11)In the end he felt fully elated and feeling alive brings birth to his adventure and a path to succeeding his personal legend. In an interview with my uncle, German, he talks about the fear of failure but most of all what comes from the acceptance of fear. Born in Mexico, the expectations from his parents where diminished to what
In the Novel Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, Lady Seymour, a dying woman asks for forgiveness from Isabel, the main Character. It is not directly stated what she is asking for forgiveness for, but it is heavily implied what she’s asking for. She’s asking for forgiveness for not buying Isabel. But Isabel does not forgive her. But she is justified in not forgiving her. This is true for multiple reasons.
Death is inevitable; if you want happiness in life, try A. Margaret Atwood, the author of “Happy Endings,” uses six separate short stories to depict outcomes with different scenarios. The author practices the use of flash fiction which adds to the entirety of each version. Though this short story has portions of unusual context, the content can teach a reflection on life. As the reader analyzes all six versions, the gender roles are evident as the story progresses. Atwood starts the short story by introducing the two main characters, John and Mary, and then proceeds to tell a variety of options as to who they are and what happens to them. In Margaret Atwood’s short story, “Happy Endings,” the central theme of fiction provides several different
After thorough analysis and interpretation, we determined that the poem ‘Let Everything Happen To You’, by Natalie Eilbert, revolves around a central theme regarding decisions and their effects. Though Eilbert’s poem never explicitly reveals a decision or effect that the main character goes through, we noticed some elements in the text that hint towards a decision that the narrator regrets. In the beginning of the poem, the narrator paints a pleasant, nostalgic picture, reflecting upon a childhood memory. However, the story shifts to a darker tone as fear, aching, and pain enter the character’s emotions in later lines. Despite the narrator’s claims that these feelings do not matter, when she foregoes details about what happened, we saw through
As time befalls, Sophie begins acquiring more correspondence, this time addressed to a girl named Hilde, but really it seems as though it were to be written in Sophie's name. Some of the correspondence comes as postcards. All are from the faraway Hilde's father, who seems to be boundless and celestial and intent on fluttering up Sophie's life. As the philosophy lessons come and go Hilde's world and Sophie's World seem to converge and merge more and more until the Grand and Mysterious Revelation that is at the center of Sophie's "World" finally makes the scene.
Alice in Wonderland belongs to the nonsense genre, and even if most of what happens to Alice is quite illogical, the main character is not. “The Alice books are, above all, about growing up” (Kincaid, page 93); indeed, Alice starts her journey as a scared little girl, however, at the end of what we discover to be just a dream, she has entered the adolescence phase with a new way to approach the mentally exhausting and queer Wonderland. It is important to consider the whole story when analyzing the growth of the character, because the meaning of an event or a sentence is more likely to mean what it truly looks like rather than an explanation regarding subconscious and Freudian interpretations. Morton states “that the books should possess any unity of purpose seems on the surface unlikely” (Morton, page 509), but it’s better to consider the disconnected narrative and the main character separately, since the girl doesn’t belong to Wonderland, which is, as Morton says, with no intrinsic unity. Whereas, there are a few key turning points where it is possible to see how Alice is changing, something that is visible throughout her journey. Carroll wants to tell the story of a girl who has to become braver in order to contend with challenges like the pool made by her own tears, or assertive characters, like the Queen.