Have you ever felt alone? Alone like you cannot find anyone to connect with? Well, I have already felt that way. And so did the protagonist in the story, Edmond Dantes. It was very obvious in the movie that it was primarily about revenge. Yet I took the story more on the fact that was stated in the movie that “God is everywhere”. God’s presence with us is one of His greatest gifts to us. In Matthew 28:20, the Lordd said that He is always with us even to the end of age. From the moment of conception up to the moment we die, God is with us. In the movie, Edmond felt alone in Chateu d’If for a couple of years and felt like giving up until he met Abbe Faria, the priest. In life, we may also have the same feeling as Dantes have. We may also feel like giving up on the problems being thrown to us by the world. But just like in Dantes’ case, God never leaves us. He sends help through the people around us like our family, loved ones and friends whom we lean on during rough times. Abbe Faria in Dantes’ situation served as the God-sent help who gave him hope to continue living. Just like in the movie, there is always a reward if we learn to hold on to God’s promises. Since Edmond Dantes hold on to the thought of having freedom back, revenge and treasure, he was able to make it. He got all those. Why?
I’ve been betrayed by my closest friends, I’ve been left, taken for granted and forgotten too by the persons whom I loved the most. I lost what and whom I value the most but I gain Christ. In my darkest and toughest times, I found myself like a baby cuddling in God’s loving arms. Truly, God is everywhere. He’s just letting us do the things we want in accordance to our free will so that we may learn. In every hardship we encounter, we were just like students taking examinations. The Master observes His students as they take exams. Right? In Psalms 139:7, a psalmist said that there is no place you can go where God is not with
Today, having power is what everybody in this country relies on day to day and couldn't function without it. Every year more and more dams are being built and more man made reservoirs are being created to provide this electricity needed. These dams are very important in my eyes but Edward Abbey carries a different opinion in his writing "The Damnation of a Canyon."
Why did so many people, young, old, sick, wealthy and even convicted felonies had to experience firsthand of the worst evil man could ever pursue to one another. What was the point? Surely there have been many explanations, but those did not answer mine. I understood why the prisoners questioned their faith in God, I probably would have to. On the contrary, not even prayers to God could stop such evil. It criticizes the acceptance of human rights. This story puts a strain on trusting others. The individuals in this novel had a redundant encounter. It maddens me to the core. The hardships of what they had to go through, just for survival gives me grief. The story overall makes me feel distressed from every angle of the
Whenever I learned to trust and turn to God, I found His comfort to satisfy my soul. Almost two years ago, one of my best friends became extremely ill and had to leave home and go to a treatment clinic. (For her privacy, I will not say the illness). She had to immediately leave for she was due to die in two weeks if she did not find help. Whenever she told me the news, my whole world flipped upside down. My life had been pretty okay before this, just a few ups and downs. This was the first major trial in my life and I was not prepared. Of course, I prayed for her but I did not grasp the fact that God was going to save her. I was extremely emotionally unstable and I tried to fix myself on my own. This never worked, I may have had temporarily relief but the fear came back. One day I finally gave up trying to fix myself and turned to God. I asked Him to forgive me for not turning to Him first and I allowed him to fix me. I placed my trust in him and ran to him for comfort. Even when it was difficult, I knew I had to trust in Him. Once I placed my faith in Him, my comfort came. I had faith that He would heal her and she will not
The only thing missing from his journey is the return, when brings back the knowledge of the Gods and bestows it to everyone he knew before his journey. Dante is a witness “…who witnessed from the deepest pit,” (Paradise 343) he was meant to see it all and testify of the truth of God’s never ending love. That isn’t part of story, it ends abruptly. Though it is probably assumed at the end that Dante’s story is meant to teach. We don’t get to see how exactly the story ends but sometimes that adds to the universal appeal of the hero’s journey. We can draw some of our conclusions at that point. What is the lesson to be learned from Dante’s extensive journey? There is a reason we are in love with the hero’s journey, why we will watch Luke Skywalker take on Vader over and over again. Why Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, and Frodo became so popular so quickly because we believe in the hero’s journey. We want the hero triumph, we need someone to go on that daring adventure and come back with that hard earned knowledge so that we too can move forward. They do the hard work, the heavy lifting so that we too can taste the sweet elixir. We can’t all be a hero but the hero can be anyone and help those who can’t help themselves. The Divine Comedy is one verily old example of this cycle and why it still exists today. The hero’s journey is not a new concept and these stories are just one the earlier examples that help constitute that cycle in the world of literature. Each story has individual progress but ultimately they are parts of the greater journey. At the end of Hell, Dante sees the stars again but his journey isn’t done and at the end of purgatory he is ready to enter Heaven, but he stills needs to travel through the ten spheres. Each a section of his
In Dante’s Inferno, the relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide is an ever-evolving one. By analyzing the transformation of this relationship as the two sojourn through the circles of hell, one is able to learn more about the mindset of Dante the Poet. At the outset, Dante is clearly subservient to Virgil, whom he holds in high esteem for his literary genius. However, as the work progresses, Virgil facilitates Dante’s spiritual enlightenment, so that by the end, Dante has ascended to Virgil’s spiritual level and has in many respects surpassed him. In Dante’s journey with respect to Virgil, one can see man’s spiritual journey towards understanding God. While God loves man regardless of his faults, His greatest desire is to see man attain greater spirituality, in that man, already created in God’s image, may truly become divine, and in doing so, attain eternality.
In Dante’s Inferno, Dante takes a journey with Virgil through the many levels of Hell in order to experience and see the different punishments that sinners must endure for all eternity. As Dante and Virgil descend into the bowels of Hell, it becomes clear that the suffering increases as they continue to move lower into Hell, the conical recess in the earth created when Lucifer fell from Heaven. Dante values the health of society over self. This becomes evident as the sinners against society experience suffering greater than those suffer which were only responsible for sinning against themselves. Dante uses contrapasso, the Aristotelian theory that states a soul’s form of suffering in Hell contrasts or extends their sins in their life on earth, to ensure that the sinners never forget their crimes against God. Even though some of the punishments the sinners in Hell seem arbitrary, they are fitting because contrapasso forces each sinner to re-live the most horrible aspect of their sin to ensure they never forget their crimes against God.
Down in Starkfield, Massachusetts dwells “the ruin of a man” (Wharton 3). Starkfield slowly displays itself as a sleepy town of monotony and woe with “perpetual pale skies” (Wharton 7). Stifled in a blanket of snow for more than half the year, it claims its inhabitants one by one as they slowly succumb to its hypnotic powers. One in particular suffers the most of all, Ethan Frome. His future once gleamed bright with the prospect of escaping Starkfield through the university, which he attended. He then leads a difficult life after the death of his father and leaving him with the responsibility of caring for his mother. After searching for help on the farm, he sends for Zenobia, a cousin, to take care of his mother. Zeena, now the light and sound of the farm, becomes Ethan's wife after the death of his mother. He often believes his marraige“...would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter...” (Wharton 62). They intended to move but “within a year of their marriage she developed the 'sickliness'...”(Wharton 63). She becomes a bed-ridden hag, draining Ethan's inheritance for her medicines and healings. It becomes apparent “[h]urting young people and depriving them of their hope and joy...” is Zeena's new hobby (Ammons 2). As he once hired Zeena for his mother, he now hires Mattie Silver, a cousin of Zeena's. Mattie “...was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her” (Wharton 29). Mattie is vivacious and smart as well as beautiful, the light of a dark, dank hole called Starkfield. She brings life back to the bleak existence Ethan lived in for seven years during his marriage to Zeena. He often longs for the love of Mattie and makes the supposition she too loves him back. The only woman ...
“They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.” (Green) The Divine Comedy is a text that is divided into three parts, the most famous of which being Inferno. Inferno follows Dante through his epic journey through the nine circles of hell in his attempt to achieve a higher understanding of the afterlife. Dante is a man that seems to have, both physically and metaphorically wandered into a very dark place. He has begun to sin without repentance, due to the fact that he doesn’t have a broad understanding of the real repercussions
... Moreover, such belief in human reason signifies Dante's hope towards a bright society and the pursuit of God’s love as the other part of self-reflection. In conclusion, a great deal of tension and contrast between “dark” and “light” in The Inferno helps us to explore Dante’s self portrait—he fears dangerous desires and sinful darkness, but shows much courage and hope towards life since he nevertheless follows his guide Virgil to dive into horrible Hell. As shown in Canto I, such emotional reaction to dark and light symbols lays a great foundation for developing Dante’s broad and universal traits as his journey progresses.
Plato describes in his Parable of the Cave the importance of education and how it changes the way people see things. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus makes rash and hasty decisions that at times are good, but more often than not, they get him into trouble. And finally, in Dante’s Inferno, Dante uses Virgil as a guide to show him the path through hell. In Parable of the Cave, Oedipus the King, and Inferno, the author’s text can be related to my own life in school, work, and how I was raised.
The first line of the verse states that the psalmist pours out his complaint to God while the second line says that the psalmist will tell his troubles to God. The psalmist doesn’t complain about God, but rather declares his troubles to Him as a confidant and friend. This verse also continues the psalmist’s intent to plead his case to God for deliverance. Psalm 142:3 says, “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, you knew my path.” When the psalmist’s spirit was so overwhelmed that he couldn’t see to make the right choice, the Lord knew his path. He indicates that although he cannot see the snares laid in his path by his enemies, the Lord can. The psalmist is aware of the trap or snarе his adversaries have placed for him and believes he lacks the ability, faith, strength or courage to escapе from it or fight
Conflict can be found in many stories and it is one of the key pieces to making a story. Without a central conflict in a story the story will seem generic or boring. Writers like to put a conflict in the story to add life to their work and keep the reader interested in what they are reading. It is a way to keep the reader wondering what happens next. In the Divine Comedy, Dante’s Inferno, the main character in the story, Dante, encounters all five types of the different conflicts on his journey through Hell. Some of these conflicts include: person against self, people against people, and Dante against Society.
Despite being one of the greatest philosophers of the last millennium, Friedrich Wilhem Nietzsche may also be the most misunderstood. He has become a walking paradox. Today he is regarded as one of the most important thinkers, yet in his lifetime, he could hardly give away his books. Sigmund Freud revered him as one of the great minds in the history of psychoanalysis, yet Nietzsche went insane at the age of 44. He publicly detested German culture, yet German soldiers received copies of his book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra during World War I. Nietzsche also abhorred Nationalism, yet Adolf Hitler misinterpreted his work, using it as an influence for Mein Kampf and a building block for the Nazi eugenics movement, which created a tremendous amount of notoriety for Nietzsche. Regardless, Friedrich Nietzsche’s works remain some of the most influential additions to modern day philosophy, several of which are still very prevalent today.
- But comfort can be found when we see the picture God has presented, not of a life without struggle, but a life where victory can be found in the struggle itself.
Deuteronomy, 31:8 is one of the best verses I have read in the Bible. It tells you that God is wherever you go and as long as you have a strong faith on him, he will never forget about you. It encourages us to have faith in God no matter what the circumstances are. Since the beginning of time people believe that having faith in God is an important role in someone’s life. I do have faith in God because of the experiences I have had that testify that he is real. When I read in the scriptures, when I go to pray, I have the most comforting feelings, it’s like a confirmation, that what I believe is real. I have even prayed, and had those prayers answered, sometimes right away, other times in his own time but answers nonetheless.