Faith is the driving force of life. Without faith, achieving anything is practically impossible. In Philip K Dick’s novel Ubik, the voice is convincing in terms of emotional power and in creating a deteriorating atmosphere of slow burning devotion. The narrator, Joe Chip faces several challenges where he has to follow the steps to figure out why the world is crumbling and exactly what it is that is still keeping him alive. Philip Dick constructs an incredible novel with the intentions of making ‘Ubik’ the savior of mankind. There can be no mistake that Philip K Dick is using Ubik as a metaphor for god. It establishes a sense of guide which may create a path to a new beginning.
One analyzing the novel may immediately wonder what “Ubik” is referring to and looking at it from a linguistic aspect, it comes from the word ubiquitous, “Ubik” means universal, everywhere, in other words, a divine being. Each passage in the novel starts with describing “Ubik” in different shapes and forms without exactly saying what it is. For instance, “Wild new Ubik salad dressing, not Italian not French but an entirely new and different taste that’s waking up the world. Wake up to Ubik and be wild! Safe when taken as directed” (36). “Not Italian, not French” refer to the concept that God, the divine right, does not have precise definition or origin. He is for every nationality, and for everybody. He is the one that’s “waking up the world”; this is directed toward how he is known as our father. He is there; ready to wake up everybody, to guide their day in the right direction. “Safe when taken as directed” is referring to the perception that people have. Majority of people have their own interpretation, and think they know exactly what God wants fro...
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...essentially by losing faith and hope.
Countless people are victims of losing hope and faith, in essence the divine right, God. When one loses faith, everything begins to deteriorate slowly, even the meaning of life. The readers begin to see such victims in Baltimore. An old lady waiting on line said, “It was dead”,
Works Cited
Drubach, Daniel A., and Daniel O. Claassen. "Perception And The Awareness Of God: The
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Grzesik, Tadeusz. "Faith And Conscience--The Surest Of Arguments For The Existence Of
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Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium Is the Message"
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Plantinga’s (2002) book Engaging God’s World consists of five parts: “Longing and Hope,” “Creation,” “The Fall,” “Redemption,” and “Vocation in the Kingdom of God.” Throughout the work, Plantinga references public speakers and activists, lyricists, philosophers, saints, and authors to help his audience connect to his perspective.
Reynolds, David S. Faith in Fiction: The Emergence of Religious Literature in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
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C.S. Lewis was the 20th century’s most popular proponent of faith based on reason. As a child, he created an imaginary world where personified animals came to life, and later, he wrote the book, Chronicles of Narnia. How did he transform from a boy fascinated with anthropomorphic animals into a man of immense faith? His transformation to the Christian religion happened as his fame began to flourish. People wrote him, asking him about his claims about the truth of Christianity (Belmonte, Kevin). As I attended the drama of Freud’s Last Session, I was engrossed into the plot of the play and was constantly thinking about how it pertained to the objectives of the World Literature class. I not only connected the content of the play to its context, but I also reached out to apply the context to a discussion on a broader scale. I then discovered why the context of literature is imperative for true understanding of the w...
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Hull, B. (2010). A reluctant prophet: How does professor Willard propose to take over the world? Journal Of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care, 3(2), 283-295.
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