Suffering is one of life’s great teachers- Bryant H McGill. More often than not, suffering is seen in a particularly negative light. Not many people can see the possible beneficial factors of suffering, but instead see only self-pity for themselves. On the contrary, suffering can actually be the key factor in understanding the world we live in. Before we can understand the world through suffering, we must understand suffering itself. Suffering can be seen as any mental or physical pain an individual has to bare. No one really needs to suffer, but somehow everyone at some point in their life has. This brings about the question on why we suffer. In the pieces of literature Medea by Euripides and The allegory of the cave by Plato, one …show more content…
Those people are not necessarily wrong. Those people are right in the suffering they describe. The suffering those people believe is not constructive but rather destructive. Suffering defined by them is non educational and can only lead to more pain. The suffering the people describe is not what true suffering is. True suffering can come in many forms. For example, Medea experiences emotional suffering when she finds out her beloved Jason has left her for another woman (Medea, lines 20-40). From this suffering Medea is able understand the situation she has put herself in. From this enlightenment Medea is able to escape the fate of her situation all the while getting the revenger she wanted. The physical sense of suffering is more prevalent in the Allegory of the cave. When first released the cave, the prisoner is burned by the sudden light surrounding him. The physical suffering he experiences eventually subsides and the prisoner begins to see and understand his new surroundings (AotC, 516b). Notice how each character experiences a completely unique type of suffering tailored specifically for their situation. An example of suffering that did not lead to clarity was the character Jason in Medea. Even though Jason lost all he the people he cared about in this world, Jason still insisted he did no wrong in the situation at hand (Medea, Suffering is painful but also durable. If someone …show more content…
What people need to understand is suffering is like bouncing a ball. The ball can only begin its ascent once it has reached its lowest point. The same goes for people. A person can only reach their highest form of understanding if they reach their lowest self. Medea and Allegory of the Cave represent two different spectrums of suffering. Medea faces mental pain or heartbreak when Jason leaves her for another woman. The prisoner who is released from the cave experiences physical pain from the sudden brightness of his new environment. While suffering is all around us, not many people truly understand it. Each individual experiences their own unique form of suffering that would be most beneficial to achieving their personal understanding of the world. A person cannot just rely on suffering alone to reach their enlightenment. The person has to be open to learning from their suffering in order to grow as a person in today’s society. Without suffering, we would be stuck within ourselves. Suffering allows us to break through our concept of reality and understand the world around
suffering hurts man spirit is does more good then constant happiness and power. We have to beat
Plato is one of the most familiar and commonly studied philosophers. His work is of the highest intelligence and full of thought-provoking attributes. Plato’s “Allegory Of The Cave” is perhaps one of the works most easily related to life. This allegory creates a sense of advancing into the “light” of understanding and knowledge.
of suffering is most beneficial. However, answering this question about suffering becomes increasingly more difficult with the
Suffering is apart of life, just like joy and love is. We can never choose how life treats us but we can always choose how we react and get back up again. Through Fever 1793 we see up close and personal how suffering can affect us, and how sometimes it can affect us in positive ways. How suffering can help turn the page to the next chapter in our lives. How suffering doesn’t always mean losing but also gaining.
The question of suffering comes up much when talking about, or practicing any religion. Many ask why people suffer, and what causes suffering? The various religions try to answer these questions in their own way. Pico Iyer’s editorial, “The Value of Suffering” addresses the questions of suffering and how it is handled. This article could be compared to the Bhagavad-Gita which also addresses and explains suffering through different stories of the interactions of humans and different Gods. One can specifically look at “The Second Teaching” in the Bhagavad-Gita, which explains the interaction between a man named Arjuna and the god Krishna. In it Arjuna is suffering because he does not want to fight in a war and with people whom he should be worshiping. Krishna says to fight because the souls of the people will forever live on, and because he needs to fulfill his Dharma. With what is known about the Bhagavad-Gita and how Iyer thinks about the subject, Iyer would agree with how the Bhagavad-Gita address suffering.
Despite its prevalence, suffering is always seen an intrusion, a personal attack on its victims. However, without its presence, there would never be anyway to differentiate between happiness and sadness, nor good and evil. It is encoded into the daily lives people lead, and cannot be avoided, much like the prophecies described in Antigone. Upon finding out that he’d murdered his father and married his mother,
Euripides shows his views on female power through Medea. As a writer of the marginalized in society, Medea is the prime example of minorities of the age. She is a single mother, with 2 illegitimate children, in a foreign place. Despite all these disadvantages, Medea is the cleverest character in the story. Medea is a warning to the consequences that follow when society underestimates the
The tragic play Medea is a struggle between reason and violence. Medea is deliberately portrayed as not a ‘normal woman’, but excessive in her passions. Medea is a torment to herself and to others; that is why Euripides shows her blazing her way through life leaving wreckage behind her. Euripides has presented Medea as a figure previously thought of exclusively as a male- hero. Her balance of character is a combination of the outstanding qualities of Achilles and Odysseus.
Pain and suffering is something that we all would like to never experience in life, but is something that is inevitable. “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?” is a question that haunts humanity. Mother Teresa once said that, “Suffering is a gift of God.” Nevertheless, we would all like to go without it. In the clinical setting, pain and suffering are two words that are used in conjunction.
Suffering is an individual's basic affective experience of pain or distress, often as a result of one’s physical, emotional or spiritual circumstance (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2006). Suffering can be classified as physical; for example pain caused by a dislocated knee, emotional; for example one’s grief over the death of a loved one, or spiritual; which is described as the state of being separated from the blissful nature of your divine self (soul). To suffer physically or emotionally is often unavoidable; however it can be argued that spiritual liberation...
The stories characters, Medea and Jason, can be seen as representations of two different responses to life. For hundreds of years, society has judged each others actions and reactions based on just cause. This story, to me, has a type of underlying theme that drags the reader into a moral debate, which forces you to really question your own belief system.
Suffering can be defined as an experience of discomfort suffered by a person during his life. The New York Times published an article entitled what suffering does, by David Brooks (2014). In this article, Brooks explains how suffering plays an important role in our pursuit of happiness. He explains firstly that happiness is found through experiences and then, suffering can also be a motivation in our pursuit of happiness. In other words, suffering is a fearful but necessary gift to acquire happiness. This paper is related to motivation and emotion, two keys words to the pursuit of happiness (King, 2010).
As previously, stated God uses difficult situations as a way to improve the relationship we have with Him. Why suffering though? Frederick Sontag wrote in his book that evil or suffering are the best circumstances in which to find a God, unlike times where everything goes well
Nobody wants pain or suffering. How can we know joy without suffering? When everything is going well, individuals have very little reason to question their philosophy of life. That is why when suffering occurs, it compels people to ask “how can i can make sense out of this? What am i missing?
Medea is a tragedy of a woman who feels that her husband has betrayed her with another woman and the jealousy that consumes her. She is the protagonist who arouses sympathy and admiration because of how her desperate situation is. I thought I was going to feel sorry for Medea, but that quickly changed as soon as I saw her true colors. I understand that her emotions were all over the place. First, she was angry, then cold and conniving. The lower she sinks the more terrible revenge she wants to reap on Jason.