Imagine you and your best friend processing your relationship to the point where both of you love each other. Seems normal? The love transforms. Now one of you wants to kiss the other. In Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two teenage boys become best friends after a couple of days. As time passed, Dante desired to kiss Ari and they do which directly connects to their homosexual love that Sáenz depicts with tennis shoes. Throughout the book, tennis shoes display Ari and Dante’s homosexual love for one another by revealing them as characters who refuse to value shoes. In the process of their friendship, Ari notices Dante’s war with shoes. Dante consistently removes his shoes whenever possible, even if it means for a second because he never felt comfortable with them on. Dante and Ari would skateboard to the park and “he’d take off his tennis shoes” (44). Another time …show more content…
Midway through, they appreciate the shoes a bit more but still remove their shoes whenever possible. After a while, Ari asks Dante if they will ever play the javelin game again, but with tennis shoes and Dante replies with a question. Then Ari says, “Like he knew we would never play that game again” (249). The fact that he uses “never” means their feelings towards each other will not return to the same state when they first met and had no feelings. In addition, they traveled to the desert together and it begins to rain. Ari and Dante decides to take off all of their clothes and just run around. They grew closer and Dante could feel the connection between them. He decides to take off “Everything except his tennis shoes” (272). Dante finally let go and became his true self. Finally, at the end Dante sent Ari a pair of shoes and Ari said, “I love these things” (357). He also, learned not to hide his true
...k wearing those old saddle shoes with her nice pink and white dress. Here poverty stroke Esperanza and hard on the back, she could not even enjoy the new dress she finally got. She did not have good shoes, there for she was not able to dance at the party because she felt like everyone would stare. She finally decided to dance with her uncle and forgot about the fact of not having nice shoes except for the once a year pair of shoes. As she continues to explain about her shoes she says, "… I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school." (Cisneros 47), here Esperanza proves that they do buy them new shoes every year, and every year they are saddle shoes because they last longer (the entire year until, until next September).
Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses nearly two thousand years ago and Dante wrote Purgatorio 1600 years after that - two pieces of literature that dealt with topics which transcend humanity's perceived reality. Each piece of literature attempts to arrive at a truth concerning the essence of human existence, Dante seeks answers within the confines of Catholic dogma while Ovid approaches existence from a paganistic perspective. This demonstrates two very different approaches to the same exact query. Mankind has questioned the existence of a metaphysical realm for generations and consequently shapes the nature of the supernatural world.
In Dante’s Inferno, the relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide is an ever-evolving one. By analyzing the transformation of this relationship as the two sojourn through the circles of hell, one is able to learn more about the mindset of Dante the Poet. At the outset, Dante is clearly subservient to Virgil, whom he holds in high esteem for his literary genius. However, as the work progresses, Virgil facilitates Dante’s spiritual enlightenment, so that by the end, Dante has ascended to Virgil’s spiritual level and has in many respects surpassed him. In Dante’s journey with respect to Virgil, one can see man’s spiritual journey towards understanding God. While God loves man regardless of his faults, His greatest desire is to see man attain greater spirituality, in that man, already created in God’s image, may truly become divine, and in doing so, attain eternality.
choose to live, though he had all other goods.” (1155a5) So it is agreed that
The William Shakespeare tragedy Othello features various types of love, but none compare to the love we find between the protagonist and his wife. In this essay let us examine “love” as found in the play.
For the first time in a long time, I was jealous of someone else’s shoes. Not just envious of their style or fit, but deep down I wanted to strip her of her shoes and socks and take them for my own. It was a fall day, not particularly chilly for most people walking to class. I felt very conspicuous, because I had been walking around for the past two days without wearing socks or shoes.
Many arguments have been made that Dante’s Inferno glimmers through here and there in Milton’s Paradise Lost. While at first glance the two poems seem quite drastically different in their portrayal of Hell, but scholars have made arguments that influence from Dante shines through Milton’s work as well as arguments refuting these claims. All of these arguments have their own merit and while there are instances where a Dantean influence can be seen throughout Paradise Lost, Milton’s progression of evil and Satan are quite different from Dante. Dante’s influence on Milton is noted by many scholars and is very apparent in several instances throughout Paradise Lost, however, Milton shows a progression of evil through his own vision of Satan and creates a Hell that is less meticulously constructed than Dante’s and more open to interpretation.
The love of the protagonist and his wife in William Shakespeare’s trgedy Othello can not stand up against the repeated assaults of the sinister Iago. Let us in this essay search for and comment on the examples of love found in the play.
In Dante’s Inferno, Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the protagonists’ relationships with their companions becomes an essential subplot within each text. Their relationships are crucial in order to complete their journey and in some cases complete each other. In addition, there are many characteristics in each text that are unrealistic representations of life. For instance, the environment of hell the Inferno, Don Quixote’s fictional world, and the instant marriages in Pride and Prejudice are all things that are not typically seen in real life. These unrealistic characteristics affect how each relationship develops, however, these factors do not take away from the significance of each relationship. In each text, the lucrative ambitions of the characters are initially the motive of many relationships rather than the desire for true companionship. A major part of the relationships development is how the characters’ companionships transition from ones that are based on individual ambitions to ones that are built on the desire for intimate relationships.
In his Metaphysics, Aristotle defines essence as “what the thing is said to be in its own right” without qualification (1029b14). Essence includes the fundamental or necessary properties of a substance, the properties that if taken away would cause the substance to cease existing as that substance. Essence also ignores accidents whose existence is contingent upon a primary substance. Essence is found in a species (secondary substance) and is not indicative of particular referents of that species (primary substance). In order for a thing to qualify as being part of a certain species, its qualities must meet the definition or criteria of this species; these qualities are its essence. Essence is the most fundamental quality of a substance that
Aristotle’s work, The Nicomachean Ethics, consists of numerous books pertaining to Aristotle’s Ethics—the ethics of the good life. The first book discloses Aristotle’s belief on moral philosophy and the correlation between virtue and happiness.
In classical Greek literature the subject of love is commonly a prominent theme. However, throughout these varied texts the subject of Love becomes a multi-faceted being. From this common occurrence in literature we can assume that this subject had a large impact on day-to-day life. One text that explores the many faces of love in everyday life is Plato’s Symposium. In this text we hear a number of views on the subject of love and what the true nature of love is. This essay will focus on a speech by Pausanius. Pausanius’s speech concentrates on the goddess Aphrodite. In particular he looks at her two forms, as a promoter of “Celestial Love” as well as “Common Love.” This idea of “Common Love” can be seen in a real life context in the tragedy “Hippolytus” by Euripides. This brings the philosophical views made by Pausanius into a real-life context.
Among the many Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece, one that was worshipped on multiple levels and to a great extent was Love. This divine force held a powerful role in many aspects of the Greeks’ lives, including the understanding of their own bodies. As the society’s culture moved away from reliance on the Divine, and towards a more scientific method of understanding itself, the notion of love remained ingrained in the set assumptions; its dual ability to cure and destroy underscored the practices of medicine and the understandings of human anatomy.
Conflict can be found in many stories and it is one of the key pieces to making a story. Without a central conflict in a story the story will seem generic or boring. Writers like to put a conflict in the story to add life to their work and keep the reader interested in what they are reading. It is a way to keep the reader wondering what happens next. In the Divine Comedy, Dante’s Inferno, the main character in the story, Dante, encounters all five types of the different conflicts on his journey through Hell. Some of these conflicts include: person against self, people against people, and Dante against Society.
Around the world people love. They live for love, they write for love, the sing, eat, cook, die and kill for love (ForumNetwork, 2009). Since the beginning of recorded time, people have wondered why love is such an intense and universal feeling. There is no culture in this planet that does not have love (ForumNetwork, 2009). This essay will only talk about romantic love were sexuality and attraction are involved. Romantic love, is one of the most powerful energies on earth (ForumNetwork, 2009), it is indeed one on the most addictive substances we can experience at least once in our life. The rush of cocaine and the rush of being in love depend on the same chemicals in our brain (ForumNetwork, 2009); we are literally addicted to love. The feeling of being in love does not depend whether the other part loves you back or not, it will help you feel more happy that is for sure, but the intensity of the feeling loved or heartbroken is the same, they both depart from the same principle: the love and desire of the other. Love remains in the most basic system of our brain, under all cognitive process, under all motor impulses; it is placed in our reward system, the most ancient systems of all (ForumNetwork, 2009).