According to the professor and fiction writer Bret Lott, what makes a story a “good story” is having writing that makes someone consider all possibilities, supernatural or not and by having a story with details that are meaningful to the person writing it. In Lott’s introduction he says, “We are writers who, by the power of Christ, are trying to smash the gates of serious literature with the joy and light and hope of a personal, saving, supernatural God” (3). Lott shows that a good story makes one really have to consider if a supernatural God plays a role in it. For example, one of Lott’s stories was about his prayer being answered by God. The prayer was answered when one of Lott’s students asks, “If I were to read a book from the bible, which
Brett Whiteley was born in Sydney on the 7th of April 1939 and died of a methadone overdose at age 53 in 1992. He is a well-known and celebrated artist both in Australia and internationally. Whiteley was awarded a range of prestigious art prizes including the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman several times. He is best known for his portraits, landscapes and sculptures. His unique perspective of the Australian landscape has endeared him to Australians (he was awarded the Order of Australia in 1991). Having grown up near the harbour in Sydney, (until he was sent to boarding school in Bathurst at age 8) the harbour features in many of his paintings. Brett Whiteley has explored emotions in his work through the subject of the art, colours and media used. He has brought many of his experiences and influences in life to his artwork. His response to alcohol and drugs as well as writers, musicians and other painters. Bob Dylan, Francis Bacon, Vincent Vah Gogh, Henri Matisse were paid tribute to by Whiteley as both inspiration and subject. Brett Whiteley uses the subjective frame as his work is
In the article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose, he begins with an anecdote of his mother working her blue-collar job at a diner as a waitress. Rose vividly describes her common day that is packed with a constant array of tedious tasks she has to accomplish to make her living. The authors goal appears to be making the reader appreciate the hard work of blue-collar workers because society places a stereotype on them as being less intelligent than someone with more schooling or even a white-collar job: “Our cultural iconography promotes the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps, but no brightness behind the eye, no inmate that links hand and brain” (282). I agree with Rose’s conclusion that if we continue to place a stigma on
... passage to suggest the essential role natural evils play in this story: "People who do not believe in God do not, of course, see our living to ourselves as a result of a prehistoric separation from God. But they can be aware – and it is a part of God’s plan of Atonement that they should be aware – that something is pretty wrong and that this wrongness is a consequence of the intrinsic inability of human beings to devise a manner of life that is anything but hideous" (203). Nowhere does experience prove this inability of human beings to escape the hideousness of the world more than in the case of natural disasters. They have existed as long as the human race, and though it may be possible for a person to delude him or herself into believing he or she is living a good life in a seemingly good world, no one can deny the horrible dangers that natural disasters present.
“THE GOAL” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox is about Alex Rogo, who’s not only battling family issues at home but as being a manager over a plant, has also noticed that their profits have been declining over the last few months. Alex then was told he had months to help the company to get back on track or the company will shut down. Alex then reunites with an old physics instructor from college names Jonah, who helps him realize his future goals for the company and the measures that need to be implicated, in order to save the company.
Many stories people read are written for the express purpose of entertainment and sometimes even to persuade, but few are written to teach a moral. The story “A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling From The Pockets” written by Kevin Brockmeier does just that. Although relatively short, the story is filled with words of wisdom and life lessons that are meant to instill a sense of selflessness. The story is about a man who finds God’s overcoat from which he finds prayers from the people he encounters. Kevin Brockmeier makes exceptional use of magic realism and symbolism to teach a moral lesson.
This story was about believing in god. What I got out of the story was this…if you do good things and are true to god, you get rewarded. Your reward was life. If you do bad things you die. John Howland was a good man and did good things to show god that he appreciated him. Therefor when he was in trouble and feel off that ship, god saved him and made it possible for him to hold on to something to pull himself up. That other man that didn't do things to show god that he appreciated him got sick and died.
Everyone remembers the nasty villains that terrorize the happy people in fairy tales. Indeed, many of these fairy tales are defined by their clearly defined good and bad archetypes, using clichéd physical stereotypes. What is noteworthy is that these fairy tales are predominately either old themselves or based on stories of antiquity. Modern stories and epics do not offer these clear definitions; they force the reader to continually redefine the definitions of morality to the hero that is not fully good and the villain that is not so despicable. From Dante’s Inferno, through the winding mental visions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, spiraling through the labyrinth in Kafka’s The Trial, and culminating in Joyce’s abstract realization of morality in “The Dead,” authors grapple with this development. In the literary progression to the modern world, the increasing abstraction of evil from its classic archetype to a foreign, supernatural entity without bounds or cure is strongly suggestive of the pugnacious assault on individualism in the face of literature’s dualistic, thematically oligopolistic heritage.
Stories like Bhagavad-Gita, Gilgamesh, Beowulf and so many more literary works that have survived over the many years since it was created. That are still read and are common to this day. Much like their spirits are in the books we read, watching us look at their work and seeing how we of this time view their stories and find meaning to them. As Henry James onced said is the literary form as: “... singly or together, as nothing without the posted prescence of the watcher--- without, in other words, the consciousness of the
John Gast’s painting titled American Progress perfectly portrays the idea of manifest destiny that engulfed the minds of Americans. Portrayed in the right side of the painting is indubitable western influence with boats, a bridge in the distance, and trains with little or no track in front of them which allows the mind to conclude the newcomers are pushing west. In the middle of the landscape are horses, buggies, and covered wagons, showing a slight increase in modernity compared to what is shown in the far left of the painting, Indians or better known by 18th and 19th century Europeans as savages. Gast also places the portrayal of western influence in the light portion of the piece, and the old primitive way of live portrayed by savages on the dark side of the piece. This is not coincidence, primitive behavior was viewed as improper and it needed enlightenment this is precisely what Gast presents in American Progress. In the bottom left corner an animal shows its teeth, which could be a signal of the dangers to moving west. What is probably noticed first however is the woman in the center of the painting. The angel, the guiding light of Manifest Destiny the one who is bringing the light that you see so prominently in the right side of the painting. Manifest Destiny was thought of as God’s call to bring western enlightenment to the west. Those who were enlightened and civilizations created by those who were enlightened were viewed as utopian. However, eleven years before Gast painted American Progress was the start of a war that rattled America. Westward expansion and subsequent acquisition of the west was fought over and the utopian ideal Gast portrays was...
In this essay I am going to compare the similarities and differences between the Terry Eagleton book and the David Wallace’s commencement address. This articles both different and aimed at a different audience, offers an interesting similarity in some aspects and differences in other to one another. The main ideas that we will be looking at are how love and happiness conflict with one another; and how we need to learn what to worship through the meaning of experiences. Then I will relate these concepts to my personal thoughts of how these concepts can be interpreted.
There are many times throughout the book that I believe they are directed toward God or the supernatural. For example, as the father and son are on their journey on the road they get 'lucky' quit a few times. When they were starving they found a house full of food and later on found a flare gun and blankets. Each of these times that they seemed to get 'lucky', I believe that they were miracles from God. Another thing is when the father found the flare gun on the boat and said that the boat was named "Pajaro de Esperanza" which means bird of hope. In the bible the dove symbolizes a bird of hope and that could have been a sign that they were going to be okay. Something else is when the father is dying and looks at the book it says "He watched
Oswalt applies a suitable classification for the Bible. In particular, he discusses whether the Bible should be viewed as myth. Keeping in mind the end goal to appropriately answer the inquiry, one needs to consider the many definitions posed by scholars today. Oswalt records these definitions and clarifies why he feels that they are
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "supernatural" as "That which is above nature; belonging to a higher realm or system than that of nature; transcending the powers or the ordinary course of nature." Through the duration of mankind’s existence, humans have been fascinated with a higher power that defies the laws of nature. Supernatural themes have stimulated literature and the arts, both ancient and modern. Many parallels can be connected between stories involving the paranormal. The setting of "The Jolly Corner" and The Devil’s Advocate evokes the preternatural.
According to the Oxford dictionary the word supernaturalism is defined as “(a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature” 1. But for some writers it is the element that sets their stories successfully in motion.
I believe that writing stories gives you more of an appreciation and understanding for a good book. All of the ideas that make a book come alive is from one author with an amazing imagination, who can captivate someone’s mind and tuck them into their world for a few hours. Every day in class I was allowed one hour to dedicate my time into a story, it is almost like entering your main character’s mind and acting as if it was you.