Despite the differences in the cultures, values, and societies of the characters in each story and myself, we all have the same variety of internal struggles. In “The Book of Ruth”, Ruth has the internal struggle of how she will survive in her world, just as I do. Similarly, in “Dead Man’s Path”, Mr. Obi has the struggle of accomplishing his job and achieving his goals.
Unlike Ruth in “The Book of Ruth”, looking for a spouse to provide for me is something I will not be doing. I am facing the same internal struggle in the sense that I am trying to get into a respected college, so that I can have a vigorous career and be able to provide for myself. Ruth chose to leave her home country, where she was husbandless and without prospects, in an age when a woman’s only means of survival was to be supported by a husband. Ruth did not know what she would find in Naomi’s country, but decided to take the chance so she could care for her mother-in-law. Following her mother-in-law’s wise advice, she ends up marrying a good man. I too will seek wise advice and take a leap of faith on which college to attend and prepare for my future. Essentially, both Ruth and I are trying to thrive in our worlds.
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Obi from “Dead Man’s Path” and I both possess very different goals to be successful in our circumstances, but nonetheless, we both do have goals for ourselves. Mr. Obi is trying to modernize an old African school and its students and faculty. His understanding of this objective includes eliminating superstitions that he sees as untrue, including a path that runs through the school grounds. He is trying to do what he feels his assignment is for the school. My assignment for now is to get good grades and get accepted into a college that I choose for my future career. Although Mr. Obi and I have very different goals, we each have our own step by step process to reach our goals. In the process, neither of us gets to make all the choices of the process because there are certain preset expectations of the accomplishments. In Mr. Obi’s single-mindedness, he went right beyond the preset expectations of getting to know the people and why they had the superstitions they had. I need to take into account that which is preset in my education and that it is what it is for a reason. Both Mr. Obi and I must consider the best paths to our goals.
All in all, people generally face the same kinds of struggles, whether we live in the Illinois Valley, 2015, or halfway across the world, 20 centuries ago. Trying to accomplish our goals and prosper in our own worlds is merely what we are doing, despite the fact that we are living very different lives and have very different
In the short story “Fighter” by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is experiencing a man vs. self-conflict. Billy, the main character, is having trouble deciding in his mind what is best in life for himself and his family’s morale and well-being. In the beginning of the story, Billy had a flashback of when he was in high school. However, Billy was a very poor student and was even expected to fail school. “Billy remembered standing in the back of the room at Junior High School 271, not being allowed to sit down until he had brought his mother in to see the teacher. ‘What are you wasting your time for?’ the guidance counselor asked him. ‘You think it’s going to be easy out there? That was the last day Billy had gone to school” (Myers 35).
One value Ruth instills in her children is the vitality of education in ultimately bettering their lives. When expressing her opinion about the lengths to which some white people go for money, she insists, “You don’t need money. What’s money if your mind’s empty! Educate your mind!” (McBride 33). As her prioritization of education over money shows, she is serious about raising her children to surpass the average. She sees a one-way road on which good education leads to money but not vice-versa; education’s permanence outweighs money’s ephemerality. This prioritization of wisdom over wealth mirrors Tateh’s raising of Ruth when she was a child: “‘That gentile school won’t teach you anything you can use[.]’ […] He paid for us to take private lessons in sewing and knitting and record-keeping[.] […] He was tight with his money, but when it came to that kind of thing, he wasn’t cheap” (80). Although Tateh emphasizes the importance of money much more than Ruth does, he is willing to pay more money to have his children take private lessons about what he considers important, textiles and organization. Likewise, Ruth states that she does not mind her children not having much money as long as they receive a good education. Both Ruth and Tateh hold e...
Several characters through the course of Steinbeck's novel East of Eden demonstrate a lack of self-knowledge or corruption of the soul. A gap is created between some the character's actions and their true essence as a person. The disparity between a character's conduct and their identity as a human being is often a demonstration of the fight between good and evil within the character's own soul. Caleb, one of Adam Trask's twin boys embodies this struggle vividly throughout his life. This search for self-identity plays into a key theme of the novel, which is that of free will. Despite the fact that there is a variance in the way a character wants to act or the person who they truly are at heart and the way that they actually carry out their lives, free will offers hope. Steinbeck pushes the idea that a person's life and fate is never out of their control and that it is never too late to change the road that you are on. It can be argued either way that this break up of fundamental identity, expression and self-knowledge is the nature of man or simply provoked by the events in the character's lives. It becomes apparent through Caleb's life that the nurture of the individual seems to be the larger factor in causing this separation. Caleb Trask's character demonstrates how the struggle between good and evil within an individual can affect one's self-knowledge, which is catalyzed mainly by the nurture of the character and, ultimately, is amendable through free will.
Throughout the novels we have read this semesters, one can makes observation that many of the characters from each novel have gone through fear whether it was due to racial strife or threat to life. We then see the characters go out and find their salvation or in some cases leave their homes before being faced with the consequences they have brought upon themselves.. Finally, most character are then faced with their fate in life where in most situation it is death or freedom. We see these variations first develop by author Richard Wright 's in his novel and movie Native Son. Each variations can been seen within different characters from both Cane and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. The variations are shape within
The story is concerned with the conflict between his conception of himself and the reality.
Most of the population today, mainly the younger generations, do not know exactly how good they have it or how much worse the quality of life can be. Personally, I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to not have experienced too many hardships. It was a real eye-opener for me after my interview with Mary Fowler, Great Depression survivor. She has been a close friend to my grandmother for as long as I can remember, but I have never heard her real story.
But for the protagonists in these stories, these forces are somewhat out of sync. Failures of individuation, and the completion of transformational journeys which lead to madness, resignation, and death point to an inability of the characters to reconcile their wants and needs with their actual lives.
As Americans we are raised to believe that every individual has a chance to succeed; that is to succeed financially and economically, but not an equal chance. Ultimately, at...
The second level was as a messenger of religion, a messenger of God. For the
Often in works of literature, a character struggles against powerful forces or obstacles, and these have a significant effect on the character. In the fictional novel Deathwatch by Robb White, the protagonist Ben is an example of a character who has to struggle against powerful forces or obstacles. Ben is a college student who wants to be a geologist. He was given an opportunity to earn some extra cash to help pay for college. The only thing he had to do was to guide a big game hunter named Madec in the desert to the location where Bighorn Sheep would be found. It sounded easy but he later ran into problems with Madec. He first had to fight through the hardships that was experienced for survival. Then he had to manage to undertake mother nature.
Henry David Thoreau famously said that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” When we compare and contrast these two stories, “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree’s Baby,” by Kate Chapin, we learn that this sentiment may be especially true for women. Kate Chapin uses “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree’s Baby” to bravely explore the social inequalities of women in terms of marriage and divorce. The combination of these two stories point out that despite the presence of love, not all marriages are happy and not all divorces are sad. In “Desiree’s Baby,” Desiree has married for love and wishes to stay married and through no fault of her own, she is forced to divorce. In contrast “The Story of an Hour” is about Louise, who has married out of social obligation and wishes to divorce, but is forced to stay married. Both women are forced to follow paths not of their own choosing and submit to the rules set down by a male dominated society. In spite of society’s tendency to romanticize marriage, many women find marriage to be a limiting burden; for others, marriage may be the only chance at life.
Through the examination of these two texts it is evidently clear that in order for heroes to face their enemies it is vital that they first overcome personal hardships. This is true of the characters in both novels, as we examine their journey toward hero status. Whether their circumstances come from a manipulative external source or from an uncontrollable string of events, they both will undergo a similar process of development.
Love and desire are presented by the writers as motivation for the main protagonists of all three texts. However, again in all three the destructive forces of obsession and jealousy damage and ultimately destroy the protagonists in some way, either through their own pursuits of love and desire, or through the manipulative and destructive actions of antagonists.
For starters, man vs self is a very common conflict that appears in my book. Shane, who was diagnosed with a disease at a young age, faces some challenges in his life. At first, he struggled with his disability and struggled to meet new people. However, Shane took action and decided that he could do so much more in life. Shane would overcome his challenges and would allow himself to do greater things. Another book that has a man vs self conflict is Catching Fire, the second book of The Hunger Game series, by Suzanne Collins. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, struggles with internal conflicts with her role in the rebellion and her own guilt (enotes).
Whether a person’s life is something experienced authentically, or factually written down as literature, there are more complexities faced then there are simplicities on a daily basis. This multifariousness causes constant bewilderment and hesitation before any sort of important decision a person must make in his or her life. When it comes to characters of the written words, as soon sensations of ambiguity, uncertainty, and paranoia form, the outlook and actions of these characters are what usually result in regrettable decisions and added anxiety for both that character as well as the reader. Examples of these themes affecting characters in the world of fiction are found in the novel The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, and the play Glengarry Glen Ross written by David Mamet. Throughout both of these texts, characters such as Oedipa Maas who allows these emotions to guide her in her journey of self discovery, and Shelly Levene who is so overcome with these emotions that they become his downfall. For both of these characters, these constant emotional themes are what guide their most impulsive actions, which can generally also become regrettable decisions. Even though it is a distinguishing factor of human beings, when these characters are portrayed in print, it somehow seems to affect the reader more, because they are able to see the fictional repercussions, and also know how they could have been avoided.