The capacity of the mind is seemingly limitless. Understanding that, the formation of a completely separate entity within the mind of an already perspicacious individual becomes less remarkable. The ensuing battle between William Wilson and “a second William Wilson” is quite simply a conflict between the two most basic components of a person’s intellect – mankind’s perception of self, and the benevolently interloping conscience (Poe 1570). The conscience is a universal concept. The majority of people are aware of their conscience, and, according to Dr. Allen Wood, a professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, people often “speak of their conscience urging them to do the right thing, or bothering them if they have done (or are thinking of doing) the wrong thing” (1). Considering Dr. Wood’s statement, and the persistent struggle between the two Wilsons, it is apparent that the second Wilson is a manifestation of the former Wilson’s conscience. While I can appreciate Thomas Peyser’s historical view on “William Wilson,” I believe the story corroborates the psychological perspective. “Poe’s William Wilson and the Nightmare of Equality” by Thomas Peyser offers a historical perspective on “William Wilson. A Tale.” He believes that “William Wilson” is a political allegory, rife with satire, illustrating Poe’s aversion to equality (Peyser 101) Peyser considers “Wilson’s account of his relations with his parents” to be an “allegorical rendering of the colonies’ revolt against a vacillating mother country riven by political strife” (101). He argues that William Wilson represents colonial America, and his “‘feeble and ill-directed’” parents assume the role of Great Britain (Peyser 101). Furthermore, he asserts that the semblance betwee... ... middle of paper ... ...s. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. . Rickaby, John. "Conscience." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 11 Mar. 2011 . Peyser, Thomas. “Poe’s WILLIAM WILSON and the Nightmare of Equality.” The Explicator. Vol. 68, No. 2. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. 2010. 101-103. Print. Poe, Edgar Allen. “William Wilson. A Tale.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 1566-1579. Print. Stanley, Charles. "Ignoring the Conscience." Christian News, The Christian Post. 16 June 2010. Web. 13 Mar. 2011. . Wood, Allan. "Kant on Conscience." Kantovski Sbornik: 1-17. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. .
Psychology attempts to provide insight on our lack of self-belief; however, the studies are mostly to no prevail. Subjectively, I believe our subconscious represents a more complex function than what is often portrayed. After all, it acts as a defense mechanism that has been pre-built into our neural network. As such, the capabilities of such a feature are near endless, though difficult to comprehend. To better understand our subconscious, we often simplify it through symbols - most commonly, heaven and hell. Studied throughout the text, symbolism of such representation is easy to interpret as it is presented through distinct quotes from the primary speaker - such as: “I heard sounds from Heaven and I heard sounds from Hell.” Incidentally, the quote also marks a set crossroads on the protagonist's journey of choice as he chooses which side to listen too - guilty or innocent. As expected, his later continuation in the text to commit heinous acts such as assault and murder, solidify his standings with the rebellious side of his conscious - as well as supporting the continuation of heightening the challenge presented by lack of self-trust. In support of this, renowned academic leader Douglas Horton is quoted speaking: “Conscience is the window to our spirit, evil is the curtain”. However, in select cases, the
Wilson commences his book with a personal encounter with “racism”. Harvard professors are usually accompanied by a respectful status and some prestige. This was not the case for Wilson. He resided in a luxurious condominium where his neighbors could not believe he lived there. When dressed in casual attires people could only interpret him as a menace. There were times where he clarified to his neighbors that he resided in this building as well. This could be seen as an act of “racism”. He then creates this problematic scenario. When walking around the inner-city ghetto part of town also he also because nervous when he sees a group of black males (Wilson, 1-4). The dilemma could be seen as followed; is it racism if you are racist to against own race?
In the “Declaration of Conscience,” Margaret Chase Smith addresses the American public and the United States Senate during a time of political unrest. Communist accusations and a “national feeling of fear” has brought upon this speech. Even with an upcoming election, the Republican Party decides a freshman woman senator would speak to the public, an uncommon practice at the time . In this paper, I will argue that Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience” proves her credibility as a woman politician. Smith uses a masculine tone, simple diction, and repetition to prove to Americans and the Senate that she is a strong political figure.
Everybody alive has experienced the feeling of guilt, or at least will at some point. Usually, this feeling is quite healthy for our consciousness, helping us distinguish between what is right and wrong by our own moral principles and values. However, guilt holds quite a power to really disturb the mind. This theme of the relationship between guilt and sanity is common throughout literature, and patterns to how this is expressed through texts are very evident. Four texts which I will discuss this theme through is Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, and The Animals’ version of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.
It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both [. . .] If each, I told myself, could be but housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.
Ethel Wilson’s exercise of brilliant literary techniques services the reader to comprehend the underlying message in her writing which is nominally responsibility of the human conscience when masked in nature. With application of clever symbolism, motif and character development, Wilson makes the reader question to what extent one should be responsible to through exploration of the human mind when manipulated by nature.
Although many white Northerners proclaimed to support the Abolition of Slavery, all of them did not have a genuine concern for the Blacks. During the Age of Abolitionism, many white Northerners were known for opposing the slavery that still existed in the Southern States of the United States of America, but writers such as Harriet Wilson and Frederick Douglass wrote literary works that exposed the white Christians and abolitionists from the North, who did not treat Blacks as their equals. In Douglass' narrative, The Narrative and life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, his autobiography, Douglass revisits his escape from slavery and his first encounter with the white abolitionists. The tone that he uses is similar to the one that Wilson uses in Our Nig; or, sketches from the life of a Free Black. In this novel, the life of Wilson is mirrored by the protagonist, Frado, who endures the harsh treatment of the Bellmonts, a white family with which she lives. Like Douglass, Wilson exhibits anger towards the white Northerners who, like their fellow white Southerners, were guilty of offending and mistreating Blacks. Wilson exhibits fury towards white Northerners who exploit Blacks by forcing them into indentured servitude.
Without Conscience: Book Report Psychopaths all have something in common, and that's luring unexpected people in their traps. Its part of human nature to wonder and question the unknown. Psychopaths are a clear example of the unknown with their personalities and behaviors that are far from the norm on a continuum. We wonder what makes them do some of the unimaginable and horrific things to people and/or animals.
The recent International Poe conference saw a number of panels and individual presentations dedicated to examining the author’s works in their social and historical contexts, suggesting that contemporary Poe criticism is moving in a cultural direction long overlooked by scholars and critics. With no less than two full panels devoted specifically to issues of race in Poe’s writing, and other papers addressing issues of cultural identity, gender politics, Poe’s relationship to American literary nationalism, and the author’s ties to both antebellum society and Jacksonian democracy, this conference provided overwhelming evidence of a current desire to emplace Poe more specifically within his cultural and historical milieu. In a broader sense, such attention to the historical and cultural dynamics of Poe’s writing suggests increased attention of late to Poe’s own Americanness. This critical trend toward assessing Poe as a distinctly American writer has, of course, also informed such excellent recent works as Terence Whalen’s Edgar Allan Poe and the Masses (1999) and the essays collected by Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe (1995). This paper represents an attempt to further such inquiry into the American “face” of Poe by examining the ways in which Poe’s unfortunately neglected tale “The Man that Was Used Up” complicates the author’s position in relation to American racial and national politics. One of Poe’s most biting satirical pieces, this tale raises vexing questions regarding the connections between matters of race, masculinity, and national identity as these concepts were imagined and constructed in Jacksonian America.
Many people have different views on the moral subject of good and evil or human nature. It is the contention of this paper that humans are born neutral, and if we are raised to be good, we will mature into good human beings. Once the element of evil is introduced into our minds, through socialization and the media, we then have the potential to do bad things. As a person grows up, they are ideally taught to be good and to do good things, but it is possible that the concept of evil can be presented to us. When this happens, we subconsciously choose whether or not to accept this evil. This where the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke become interesting as both men differed in the way they believed human nature to be. Hobbes and Locke both picture a different scene when they express human nature.
Human nature is a conglomerate perception which is the dominant liable expressed in the short story of “A Tell-Tale Heart”. Directly related, Edgar Allan Poe displays the ramifications of guilt and how it can consume oneself, as well as disclosing the nature of human defense mechanisms, all the while continuing on with displaying the labyrinth of passion and fears of humans which make a blind appearance throughout the story. A guilty conscience of one’s self is a pertinent facet of human nature that Edgar Allan Poe continually stresses throughout the story. The emotion that causes a person to choose right from wrong, good over bad is guilt, which consequently is one of the most ethically moral and methodically powerful emotion known to human nature. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe displays the narrator to be rather complacent and pompous, however, the narrator establishes what one could define as apprehension and remorse after committing murder of an innocent man. It is to believe that the narrator will never confess but as his heightened senses blur the lines between real and ...
We are all sinners. Although one may try hard not to sin, all humans eventually succumb at some time or another to sin. While people may not able to avoid the fate which awaits them, the power of free will allows people to decide how they will respond to sin. While some may respond with guilt and regret, others may react with a sense of redemption and a renewed sense of responsibility.
After spending a day with her father, who has Alzheimer’s, Allison is unable to control the impulse to take pills to ease the pain of the effect of human diseases. Weiner personifies Allison’s brain to display the duality between impulse and conscience. Allison’s brain represents her conscience, crying “What are you doing,” (126) as she is unable to control her impulse to crunch “three of the pills” (126). Although Allison’s conscience attempts to stop her impetuous decision to steal her father’s medicine, her impulse overrides her control and conscience, supporting the idea that desperate times call for desperate measures.
In “William Wilson”, Edgar Allan Poe teases his readers throughout the entirety of story with hints about its unexpectedly expected conclusion. Through figuratively-infused passages, Poe meticulously leads the reader to the front steps of the story’s ending without ever truly revealing the conclusion until the final sentences. Within those final sentences, the question of who the second William Wilson truly is, is answered, immediately transforming the story from a battle between two physical beings with both the same name and appearance into an internal battle staged within the mind of one man with conflicting desires. In order to create this dramatic and essential shift, Poe externalizes the protagonist’s internal struggle by blurring the
If we are to be truly innocent and humble beings, we must recognize our own innate guilt as human and accept it. If we do not, we will constantly be obsessed by our “state of apparent acquittals”. Kafka, Franz. A. The Trial. Trans.