Consumed in Beauty
“A kind of delicacy … seriously beyond his year” (25).
Life for humans is dictated by the yearning for more through our experiences. We strive for more knowledge, more wealth, and more happiness, but it all is endless like an abyss. Beauty, however, is pure and can be found in the simplest matters in life. Throughout the novel Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann, Aschenbach works his whole life rigorously day by day searching for more and more until his introduction to Tadzio in Venice. Upon Aschenbach’s first site of Tadzio he falls in love with the perfect beauty of the child. For the first time in his life he sees the simplicity of beauty and how perfect it is, however, he is consumed by it. Aschenbach’s introduction to beauty consumes his mind from the rest of the world. Aschenbach searches for beauty in life, but is trapped and consumed by it and is pulled away from the rest of the world.
Tadzio represents beauty and he shows Aschenbach the true simplicity of beauty. In Aschenbach’s eyes Tadzio is “a precious artifact of human nature” who reveals true beauty t...
In the collection of short stories written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne explores the idea of perfection and how it is something that is not necessarily achievable, which is blatantly stated by Salvador Dali when he once said “Have no fear of perfection - you’ll never reach it”. Furthermore, James Stephens once stated, “Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect...”. This idea that perfection is not an attainable objective till death is exemplified in three of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s collection of short stories. These three stores all evaluate the subject of perfection slightly differently.“The Birthmark” delves into the idea that nothing is perfect, “The Minister’s Black Veil” analyzes the concept that finality is death, and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” tests the idea that perfection is finality.
The Shadow of the Galilean by Gerd Theissen is a fictional narrative about a Jewish merchant, Andreas, searching for information about a group of people known as Essenes, John the Baptist, and Jesus of Nazareth. While traveling through Jerusalem Andreas was imprisoned by the Romans thinking he was a part of a demonstration against Polite when his mission was to find Jesus. Andreas writes, “I never met Jesus on my travels through Galilee. I just found traces of him everywhere: anecdotes and stories, traditions and rumors. But everything that I heard of him fits together.
What woman doesn't want to be beautiful? Women want to please and will go to extreme measures to achieve the beauty ideal. Over the centuries, women have mauled and manipulated just about everybody part - lips, eyes, ears, waists, skulls, foreheads, stomachs, breasts and feet - that did not fit into the cookie-cutter ideal of a particular era's ideal of beauty and perfection. Women have suffered, sacrificed and punished themselves under the tyranny of beauty.
What is your definition of beauty? If you were to ask a group of people what their definition of beauty and love is, you would get a different answer every time. In Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, we see how beauty is seen in different perspectives. For example the saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, meaning that what one finds beautiful may appear differently to another. This saying applies to Cyrano and Roxane, and their views on beauty, especially on inner and outer beauty. The views that Cyrano and Roxane have on beauty is what causes the conflicts in the play.
This essay will closely study and describe Rosso Fiorentino’s The Descent from the Cross. The painting depicts the process of Jesus Christ being taken off of the cross.
...g the perfect life should seem unrealistic to anyone evaluating the goal from an objective perspective; however the circumstances of the characters in the presented literary works exaggerate the expectations of everyday society. Each work focuses on portraying a flaw inherent in human nature from a different angle and ultimately, the characters’ quests for perfection demonstrate that the flaws permeating human nature are inescapable, prophesying failure for all those who seek to embody perfection.
Edith Wharton was the author of The Age of Innocence, a novel published in 1920. In the book, many topics were considered, such as divorce, the empowerment of women, and the lifestyle of the wealthy. The inspiration for these motifs occurred throughout her life. Although Edith Wharton’s work was not well-received, the topics included in her writings held many truths about upper-class society in the late 1800s; therefore, Edith Wharton was influenced by her past and societal experiences.
Through many writers’ works the correlation of mortality and love of life is strongly enforced. This connection is one that is easy to illustrate and easy to grasp because it is experienced by humans daily. For instance, when a loved one passes away, even though there is time for mourning, there is also an immediate appreciation for one’s life merely because they are living. In turn, the correspondence of mortality and a stronger love for life is also evident in every day life when things get hard and then one is confronted by some one else whom has an even bigger problem, then making the original problem seem minute. This is seen as making the bad look worse so then the bad looks good and the good looks even better. The connection of mortality and one’s love for life is seen in both T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and Yulisa Amadu Maddy’s No Past No Present No Future.
It is true that we feel compassion, but can we truly forgive and forget?Never start with a question, but also not this one because your point is somewhat confusing. Do you want the focus to be on compassion or do you want the reader to question compassion? Hester, from ‘The Scarlet Letter ’, conceives a child through an affair, and her life after is full of struggles as she tries to circumvent through challenges to create a new life. Unfortunately, the life of repentance and dignity comes at a cost which she has to pay in order to earn it. This story relates to the ‘Crucible’ based on the famous Salem witch trials up close and personal. A trial that saw numerous people accused of witchcraft persecuted and executed by the colony. In a nutshell
The painting, in its simplest form, consists of a naked woman lying elegantly upon stately and rich cloths, while a young, also nude boy, is holding a mirror which contains her reflection. Upon first glance of this work, I was quickly able to make out the identity of the two subjects. ...
Two boys stare at an unfamiliar girl sitting by herself and whisper, “She must be new,” to each other. They walk over to her, wanting to know about her, and ask her where she is from. The human tendency of wanting to know about the unknown is an idea writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne use in their works. Hawthorne uses the style of Romanticism, which was most prominent during the early nineteenth century and includes specific traits such as devotion to nature, feelings of passion, and the lure of the exotic. It also emphasizes traits including the idea of solitary life rather than life in society, the reliance on the imagination, and the appreciation of spontaneity. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Hawthorne is about Doctor Rappaccini's garden and daughter Beatrice who live in Italy. A man named Giovanni living near the garden falls in love with Beatrice, but Beatrice is infused with poison and unintentionally kills living things that touch or go near her. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a work of Romanticism because it includes Giovanni’s lure to the exotic, solitary life as a theme, and appreciation of nature in descriptions.
Just as readers glance at “Perfection Wasted” by John Updike, the poem promises instant and provident satisfaction. Throughout the poem readers experience a dianoetic frequence fittingly established by Mr. Updike. Ideas are affluent from beginning to the prudent end. As a sonnet, the idioms are attentively expressed and developed. The sonnet is methodically balanced with literal and figurative lines. The poet profoundly describes our irreplaceable attainments and triumphs that disappear with a human’s death. Mr. Updike is limning the sudden vanish and dematerialization of an entire life’s section within seconds.
Thomas Mann's Death in Venice presents an artist with a fascination for beauty that overpowers all of his senses. Aschenbach's attraction to Tadzio can be viewed as a symbol for his love for the city of Venice. The city, however, is also filled with corruption, and it is this corruptive element that kills him.
Myra, who is dying of illness, escapes the confinement of her stuffy, dark apartment. She refuses to succumb to death in an insubordinate manner. By leaving the apartment and embracing open space, Myra rejects the societal pressure to be a kept woman. Myra did not want to die “like this, alone with [her] mortal enemy” (Cather, 85). Myra wanted to recapture the independence she sacrificed when eloping with Oswald. In leaving the apartment, Myra simultaneously conveys her disapproval for the meager lifestyle that her husband provides for her and the impetus that a woman needs a man to provide for her at all. Myra chose to die alone in an open space – away from the confinement of the hotel walls that served as reminders of her poverty and the marriage that stripped her of wealth and status. She wished to be “cremated and her ashes buried ‘in some lonely unfrequented place in the mountains, or in the sea” (Cather, 83). She wished to be alone once she died, she wanted freedom from quarantining walls and the institution of marriage that had deprived her of affluence and happiness. Myra died “wrapped in her blankets, leaning against the cedar trunk, facing the sea…the ebony crucifix in her hands” (Cather, 82). She died on her own terms, unconstrained by a male, and unbounded by space that symbolized her socioeconomic standing. The setting she died in was the complete opposite of the space she had lived in with Oswald: It was free space amid open air. She reverted back to the religious views of her youth, symbolizing her desire to recant her ‘sin’ of leaving her uncle for Oswald, and thus abandoning her wealth. “In religion , desire was fulfillment, it was the seeking itself that rewarded”( Cather, 77), it was not the “object of the quest that brought satisfaction” (Cather, 77). Therefore, Myra ends back where she began; she dies holding onto
In Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty is depicted as the driving force in the lives of the three main characters, Dorian, Basil and Lord Henry. Dorian, the main character, believes in seizing the day. Basil, the artist, admires all that is beautiful in life. Lord Henry, accredited ones physical appearance to the ability of achieving accomplishments in life. Beauty ordains the fate of Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry. The novel embodies the relationship of beauty and morality. Beauty is not based on how attractive an object is to everyone, but how attractive it is to one.