In Anton Chekov’s story Gooseberries, two men are caught in a rainstorm and seek shelter at a friend’s home nearby. While at the home, one of the men, Ivan Ivanich, tells a story about the immoral acts his brother committed to become a landowner. After Ivan’s brother achieved his career goal, he lived life blissfully. Ivan finds his brother’s happiness selfish as he believes a happy man “neither sees nor hears others.” Chekov’s story suggests that happy people are indifferent towards the suffering of others. This human position of suffering is also explored in W.H. Auden’s poem “Musee des Beaux Arts” and Scott Carney’s article Cash on Delivery. The respective texts and Chekhov’s quote are bound by their mentioning of individuals as self-interested beings concerned solely about personal happiness. Nevertheless, there is more to life than happiness and one must be aware of the suffering of his/her fellow human-beings.
While the desire for happiness is merely human nature, Chekhov’s quote demonstrates that once a man does reside in happiness he “should have
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someone with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people.” Chekhov believes that happy people tend to be so self-interested that they ignore the unhappiness of others. This notion is demonstrated in “Musee des Beaux Arts” when the speaker of the poem describes the ploughman turning away “quite leisurely from the disaster” (15) even though he may “have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,/But for him it was not an important failure” (16-17). Because Icarus’ suffering wasn’t directly affecting the ploughman, he merely went on with his day. The ploughman’s reaction embodies the egotistical essence of individuals when others are suffering. Likewise, in the article Cash On Delivery, Scott Carney investigates India’s surrogate business at Akansha Infertility Clinic.
The surrogates at Akanksha must undergo physical discomforts and isolation “to receive a sum that’s quite substantial by their meager standards” which “the clinic’s customers understand is a steal” (Carney par 6). It is evident that these foreign customers are so absorbed in their own pursuit for a baby that they neglect the harsh reality for the surrogates. For little money, Indian women use their own wombs as labor in very poor conditions. The founder of Akanksha, Doctor Nayna Patel, behaves in the same manner as that of her customers. She exploits her own surrogates in meager living conditions in exchange for money and medical fame. Doctor Patel and the customers share a common quest for personal happiness; yet, they abandon their morality and cause harm to others as a
result. Furthermore, humans choose to fixate their attention solely on their own lives and do not discern the reality of the world. Chekhov understands that no one can force happy people to open their eyes to others’ suffering: “the happy go on living, just a little fluttered with the petty ares of every day like an aspen-tree in the wind— and everything is all right.” When individuals reside in a state of contentment, they merely become blasé towards news of suffering. They may hear of horrific events on the news or the troubling problems of a neighbor; but, because it does not directly harm their state of being, they do not care. In “Musee des Beaux Arts” when Icarus drowns in the ocean close to a nearby a ship, the speaker states, “the expensive delicate ship must have seen/something amazing” (19) but it “had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on” (21). The people on the ship clearly saw that Icarus was in danger; however, they chose to do nothing about it as it did not interfere with their lives. The haunting description of the ship sailing on “calmly” after hearing the cries of Icarus drowning exposes the true human position of suffering. Humans are so caught up in their own lives that they neglect the tragedies of others. In the article Cash on Delivery, Carney reports “some of Patel’s customers view the residency program as an insurance policy of sorts” (par 25). Therefore, Sarah a customer from California, chooses to go to Akanksha Feritlity Clinic. She believes that choosing a surrogate from her home would “have been a concern” as she would not know “what they’re eating,” and “what they’re doing” (par 25). The setup at Akanksha is more appealing to Sarah as the “surrogate’s sole purpose is to carry a healthy baby for someone” (par 25). A surrogate in India lives in complete isolation for nine months and is solely identified as a vessel to grow someone else’s baby. This form of labor is dehumanizing to Indian women and is “driven by Western Consumerism” (Carney par 33). If foreigners were not capitalizing this labor, the Akanksha Fertility Clinic would not be in business. These customers, however, want babies for cheap prices in a controlled environment. They do not think about the exploitative nature of the Indian women; they only think about themselves. Near the end of Chekhov’s story Gooseberries. Ivan recounts a memory of watching his brother eat gooseberries that he had grown on his own land. His brother finds the berries absolutely delicious and urges Ivan to try them. Ivan finds them hard and sour. Although the berries may have been palatable, Ivan cannot find them tasty as his brother had to commit horrible acts in order to grow them. His brother, however, has no problem enjoying the berries because he lives in an illusion of pure happiness. Happy or not, one must not neglect the rest of humanity to shield his/her sacred happiness. Unfortunately, life is not nice to everyone. Humanity, collectively, must be kind to one another. The truth is, we only have each other.
William James once said that “Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action." Everyone living in a society we live in today are putting in efforts to obtain happiness. Many individuals will pursue that happiness while others will compromise it. To achieve happiness, everyone has their own methods, but sometimes it will not work, when you realize you can’t always have what you want. In the text To Kill A Mockingbird and the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet, Harper Lee and Shakespeare developed the idea that every individual pursue or compromise happiness differently because we have different beliefs and values that shapes our identities. Compromise can seem like a negative thing, but in some situations it is crucial to happiness. It is not possible to always everything you want in life but the desire of pursuing happiness provide individuals with more satisfaction than compromising happiness.
For example, to decant the lower caste embryos, “the surrogate goes round slower; therefore passes through the lung at longer intervals; therefore, gives the embryo less oxygen. Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par” (14). Instead of strengthening embryos, the State intentionally weakens many embryos to uphold their hierarchy. Here, readers see the dark side of the New World’s caste arrangement. To conserve its structure, society is forced to abandon all values of equality and create people that are inferior and weaker than others.
In contrast to Aristotle, Roko Belic’s documentary “Happy” provides a fresh perspective that takes place far more recently. The film sets out to similar goals of Aristotle in defining the nature of happiness and exploring what makes different people happy in general. Unlike Aristotle, however, the film’s main argument refers to makes people happier. In this case, the film argues that merely “doing what you love” is what leads to happiness (Belic). The argument itself appears oddly self-serving, considering that message is what underlines the foundation of happiness, yet there is a subliminal message that a simpler lifestyle is what leads to what the film is trying to convince you of. The message itself is obviously addressed to Americans, considering
Therefore, happiness is “what provokes us, incites us, need not come from our own time. Indeed, our own time may be and probably is so d
All in all, Chris McCandless is a contradictory idealist. He was motivated by his charity but so cruel to his parents and friends. He redefined the implication of life, but ended his life in a lonely bus because of starvation, which he was always fighting against. Nevertheless, Chris and the readers all understand that “happiness only real when shared.” (129; chap.18) Maybe it’s paramount to the people who are now alive.
No matter the state of mind, everyone has the ability to be happy if they allow themselves the opportunity. As expressed throughout this passage, I do not agree with Thomas Szasz’s idea that “ Happiness is and imaginary condition,” as facts in science indicate happiness is a real and natural feeling every human will experience. If one allows themselves and their
It is then, when Gatsby emerged from F. Scott Fitzgerald. A true character of 1920’s America, the parties, the young-money, the helplessly in love, the pursuit of happiness. Darrin McMahon’s “In Pursuit of Unhappiness” explores the topic of seeking felicity and encountering barriers that we would not preoccupy ourselves with if we existed in an otherwise empathetic society. “Secular culture since the 17th century made "happiness," in the form of pleasure or good feeling, not only morally acceptable but commendable in and of itself.” (para. 4). As this quote exemplifies, there is a cultural notion of happiness being expected to be our default state of being. Due to this ingrown conception, we are riddled with the demand of forcing our path to contentment, as Gatsby, a character dumbfounded by a love he thought unmatched with a young debutante,
The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
The addition of a child into a family’s home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents. Instead of waiting to see if the child had the mother’s eyes, the father’s hair or Grandma’s heart problem, the parents and doctors can select the best eggs and the best sperm to create the perfect child. Many see the rise of in vitro fertilization as the second coming of the Eugenics movement of the 19th and early 20th century. A process that is able to bring joy to so many parents is also seen as deciding who is able to reproduce and what child is worthy of birthing.
In the short story “The Lady with the Pet Dog”, Anton Chekhov demonstrated a great ability in mood shift and presenting some of the most dynamic characters. One could argue both of the main characters undergo metamorphosis, but it seems clear that the male character undergoes the most radical transformation. In fact, Charles Stanion argues “One of the story's most impressive aspects is Dmitry Gurov's gradual metamorphosis” (402). Throughout the story, the reader witnesses the transformation of Gurov from treating Anna as a mere conquest to developing a true love for her. Chekhov’s short story is one characterized by many details that support this transformation. In this essay, I will prove how Gurov’s radical change parallels the complexity and precariousness human
The story of In "The Death of Ivan Ilych", was written by Leo Tolstoy around who examines the life of a man, Ivan Ilyich, who would seem to have lived an exemplary life with moderate wealth, high station, and family. By story's end, however, Ivan's life will be shown to be devoid of passion -- a life of duties, responsibilities, respect, work, and cold objectivity to everything and everyone around Ivan. It is not until Ivan is on his death bed in his final moments that he realizes that materialism had brought to his life only envy, possessiveness, and non-generosity and that the personal relationships we forge are more important than who we are or what we own.
Anton Chekhov denied that any of his stories were autobiographical fiction, yet much of his work clearly grew out of his own experiences. From “An Attack of Nerves” to “Three Years,” different aspects of his life were incorporated throughout his stories. Each stage of Chekhov’s life made an impact in the tales he told.
In society, the line between happiness and pleasure has been blurred for ages. It can be difficult for one to determine the difference between true happiness and pleasure. Although pleasure is a key component in determining one’s happiness, pleasure provides one with short-term satisfaction, which almost always seems to fade, leaving emptiness within. Happiness, on the other hand, provides one with long-lasting satisfaction that seems to endure through the good as well as the bad. In effect, pleasure’s deception can lead one astray from the achievement of true happiness. F. Scott Fitzgerald realized this concept, which he emphasized it in his novel, The Great Gatsby.
Arthur Ashe once said, “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however makes a life.” Such is the case in Nikolai Gogol’s short story The Overcoat. Gogol takes a man without a friend in the world and gives him a new overcoat. The new overcoat represents a new life and a new identity for the man and instantaneously he is much happier. The man, Akaky Akakievich, basis his “new life” upon the love that he gives to his overcoat, and what he feels it gives him in return. Before long, Akaky begins to care more about his beautiful coat and less about the people around him. Thus is the theme of the story. Often material things are more important in our lives than people, resulting in the emptiness of one’s heart and soul. One cannot be truly happy with his possessions alone. He needs more than that. He needs people his life, whom he can call friends.