This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
Briefly, Henry and the Great Society is the story of Henry, a man living in a cultural cul-de-sac, pursuing a way of life that was perhaps a hundred years behind the times, and what happens to him when modern living suddenly becomes a possibility. A series of seemingly inconsequential decisions, each one apparently beneficial in itself, inexorably destroys the self-sufficient, productive, peaceful, and satisfied Henry, transforming him into a thoroughly modern mandependent, debt-ridden, unhealthy, overworked, worried. Henry's family is destroyed as his wife and children find lives to live outside the home.
Because H.L. Roush barely fleshes out the characters of Henry, his wife Esther, and his children, it is that much easier for the reader to project himself into the story. Every time Henry takes another step away from agrarianism and towards The Great Society, your heart sinks and you want to shout out a warningDon't do it, Henry! Don't you see what a high price you'll pay for such a trivial gain?but all the while you know that you were just as prone to Henry to have chosen the same path. In fact, you're much further down that path, due to your own choices and the choices of those that went before you. You are fully immersed in the life of dependence and specialization and wage-slavery that Henry is steadily inching towards, and so you know exactly how much Henry is throwing away, exactly what sort of bondage he is selling himself into.
We recommend that you stop reading the book at the end of Henry's story (p. 86). You won't want to, because the ending is very bleak and you will be looking for some respite from the story, something to encourage you. Unfortunately, the final part of the book consists of H.L. Roush's theological reflections on the story, and for the most part they aren't edifying. Best to think through the story yourself, perhaps even read it to your children, and together as a family consider what went wrong for Henry, how he might have avoided the downward spiral, and what lessons can be applied to your own circumstances.
When we look at Henry as a king we have to look in the context of
War changes a person in ways that can never be imagined. Living in a war as well as fighting in one is not an experience witnessed in everyday life. Seeing people die every time and everywhere you go can be seen as an unpleasant experience for any individual such as Henry. The experiences that Henry had embraced during the Vietnam War have caused him to become an enraged and paranoid being after the war. It has shaped him to become this individual of anxiety and with no emotions. The narrator says:
Henry is arguing to get the people on the anti-federalist side. He wants the people to realize how much the new constitution would hurt the government. The argument is persuasive. This is because he did not just state his objection, he also gave proof and reasoning behind all of his objections. Henry is using emotions and history to get the people on his side. He gets them to feel how he feels. When reading you feel a connection to the document. You feel a sense of power, but the emotion of fear also happens. This is because you don’t want the government to fall. Henry does a good job at hooking the reader to make them understand where he is coming
Henry is somewhat naïve, he dreams of glory, but doesn't think much of the duty that follows. Rather than a sense of patriotism, it is clear to the reader that Henry goals seem a little different, he wants praise and adulation. "On the way to Washington, the regiment was fed and caressed for station after station until the youth beloved
Henry suffers from retrograde amnesia due to internal bleeding in the part of the brain that controls memory. This causes him to forget completely everything he ever learned. His entire life is forgotten and he has to basically relearn who he was, only to find he didn’t like who he was and that he didn’t want to be that person. He starts to pay more attention to his daughter and his wife and starts to spend more time with them.
...ad been in a state of economic crisis for an extensive time. These actions created a rift between his subjects; many remained loyal to the church and wanted Henry to reinstate it, while others believed it to be corrupted, and accepted the new change. Revolution hung in the air and threatened the stability Henry had been pushing to create. He knew that the tension would recede should he bear a son to carry on the Tudor name.
Henry V is not a simple one as it has many aspects. By looking into
At the beginning, Henry Fleming has an undeveloped identity because his inexperience limits his understanding of heroism, manhood, and courage. For example, on the way to war, “The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth [Henry] had believed that he must be a hero” (Crane 13). Since he has yet to fight in war, Henry believes a hero is defined by what others think of him and not what he actually does. The most heroic thing he has done so far is enlist, but even that was with ulterior motives; he assumes fighting in the war will bring him glory, yet another object of others’ opinions. At this point, what he thinks of himself is much less important than how the public perceives him. As a result of not understanding
King Henry V is considered to be by far one of the greatest rulers to ever have graced the throne of England. Shakespeare demonstrates this belief by exemplifying Henry’s strong attributes showing just how great and powerful of a leader Henry was. However the issue of power and ethics plays a tremendous role in the personification of Henry as a person. There is no doubt that Henry’s power and ethical stance makes him a great king, but by being a great king, Henry is forced to act in a way that can be construed as dissolute. Henry betrays a number of his friends including Falstaff, and threatens the Governor of Harfleur ordering him to surrender or he will kill the innocent children of Harfleur. It is through the issue of power and ethics demonstrated by King Henry V that the blurred line between hero and villain can be seen and in the end one can see that it is possible to describe Henry as being an immoral human being.
When Henry is first introduced, he is arrogant and dissolute and has yet to establish any parameters for his life. The reader is given no indication of why he abandoned architecture to join a foreign army.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Henry frolicked through vast pastures and open, inviting fields instead of keeping his nose in the books. When his family transported from Connecticut to east coast Massachusetts, Henry found that Boston “held one attraction for (him) – sailing ships” (HBSC). His apparent love for spontaneity and
He was a human that had emotions, he experienced grief with the multiple miscarriages and deaths of his sons and the betrayals of his wife’s, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Also the death of Jane Seymour, the only wife to give him a male heir, brought him into a depression. These events changed Henry’s perspective of his own self, that he was without a legal heir, his health was horrendous and he was being betrayed by those closest to him. Lipscomb describes the transformation of Henry from the popular prince to the tyrant king know today. As shown, “the last decade of his reign, Henry VIII had begun to act as a tyrant. The glittering, brilliant monarch of the accession, toppled into old age by betrayal, aggravated into irascibility and suspicion as a result of ill health and corrupted by absolute power, had become a despot”. Henry is not thought of as the good Christian, but Lipscomb writes throughout this book that Henry was very serious about his religious affiliations. Lipscomb portrays Henry VIII as, “a man of strong feeling but little emotional intelligence, willful and obstinate but also fiery and charismatic, intelligent but blinkered, attempting to rule and preserve his honor against his profound sense of duty and heavy responsibility to fulfil his divinely ordained role”. In other words he was an emotional mess that did not know what to do with his feelings, so he bottled them up and south to seek
In “Regarding Henry” Henry Turner portrays a complex nuanced id and superego. Henry has positive and negative qualities on each side. What happened to Henry was that he was shot in a store when he was trying to buy some cigarettes. He later became disabled by forgetting everything and everyone he knew or loved. Henry wasn't able to walk or move but finally after after some time of physical therapy he was able to walk and talk.
Henry’s character is introduced in the movie when his cousin Mark, who is just about the same age as him, suddenly comes to stay with their family because his father had to go away on business. Mark’s mother recently passed away right in front of his eyes and he was still dealing with the repercussions of it all. Dealing with feelings of loneliness, Mark immediately developed a close bond with Henry. He found Henry to be adventurous and nice but was not aware of who Henry really was and what he was experiencing. At first, Henry seemed like a decent young boy who enjoyed experimenting with new things. On ...
The civil war had resulted in the ever-changing amount of kings over the years. This lack of stability could result in Henry being faced with a lack of support from his subjects. Their faith in a king who would guide the country was low, and their interest in the monarchy was fading. They needed consistency, which Henry could not offer considering his unsteady path to safeguarding his position on the throne. The nobility was another issue he had faced. Growing power of nobility in England could be met with resistance to Henry being on the throne. Henry was a calculated king, whom was not interested in the common characteristics of a king; drinking, constant lavish gatherings… Henry was more interested in being a strong and strict king. An opposition from the nobility could result in large reluctancy to follow Henry, further causing insecurity. However, he still had the more favourable opinion than Richard, who was strongly disliked in England, apart from in the north of