Solitude and isolation are immense, powerful, and overcoming feelings.
They possess the ability to destroy a person's life by overwhelming it with
gloom and darkness. Isolate is defined: to place or keep by itself, separate
from others (Webster 381). Solitude is "the state of being alone" (Webster 655).
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses these themes of solitude and isolation for the
characters in several of his works. "Hawthorne is interested only in those
beings, of exceptional temperament or destiny, who are alone in the world..."
(Discovering Authors). Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Goodman Brown, and
Beatrice Rappaccini are all persons "whom some crime or misunderstood virtue, or
misfortune, has set them by themselves or in a worse companionship of solitude
(Discovering Authors). Hawthorne devoted many stories to isolated characters -
one's who stand alone with no one to look to for love or support. "For
Hawthorne, this condition of moral and social isolation is the worst evil that
can befall aman" (Adams 73). Each of the characters above are separated from
the world because of some sin or evil. Their separation is a painful,
devastating feelings. The themes of solitude and isolation are depicted in
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, "Young Goodman Brown, "and
"Rappaccini's Daughter."
At the age of four, Nathaniel Hawthorne's father died, devastating his
mother and destroying his family forever. He later recalls how his mother and
sisters would "take their meals in their rooms, and my mother has eaten alone
ever since my father's death" (Martin 10). Naturally, Hawthorne's mother's
isolated life contributed to his personal solitude and to his stories of
solitude. Although he never reached the point she did, his life too became one
of separation and loneliness. When he was nine, a severe foot injury reduced
his physical activity for almost two years and excluded him from many activities
with other children. Soon after the recovery, his family moved to an isolated
area in Raymond, Maine. It is here that he picked up his first "accursed habits
of solitude" (Martin 3). On his relationship with his mother, Hawthorne said:
I loved my mother, but there has been , ever since my boyhood, a sort
of coldness of intercourse between us, such is apt to come between
persons of strong feelings, if they are not managed rightly (Martin 11).
Hawthorne never had a strong, healthy family life. However, his lonely
childhood was only the beginning to the many solitude years he would experience.
1825-1837 have traditionally been termed the years of solitude in
Hawthorne's life. During this time, he is described as having "a sombre, half-
disappointed spirit" (Newman 127).
“I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!”(199), these were the last words of Chris McCandless in a picture with him smiling and waving good-bye. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is an extension of an article first published in Outside magazine. In the book, Krakauer further explains the journey of Chris McCandless, while providing his own insight to provide the reader a better understanding of the McCandless reasoning. McCandless lived a nomadic life after he graduated from college, traveling from South Dakota to Mexico. However, his two year journey proved fatal when he took a trip to Alaska, his greatest undertaking. Among his remains several books were discovered, including a copy of Walden by Henry D. Thoreau
My mother was a complex, multi-faceted person. Many of you here today knew my mother personally, and many of you knew my mother indirectly through one of her family members. You may have known her as a coworker, a friend, or a support person. Of course, all of my mother’s family here today each knew a part of her, a “facet” of her--as a mother, a sister, an aunt, a grandmother, a cousin.
The Vietnam War has become a focal point of the Sixties. Known as the first televised war, American citizens quickly became consumed with every aspect of the war. In a sense, they could not simply “turn off” the war. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo is a firsthand account of this horrific war that tore our nation apart. Throughout this autobiography, there were several sections that grabbed my attention. I found Caputo’s use of stark comparisons and vivid imagery, particularly captivating in that, those scenes forced me to reflect on my own feelings about the war. These scenes also caused me to look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a soldier, which is not a perspective I had previously considered. In particular, Caputo’s account of
There is a common misconception that Planned Parenthood is a center for abortions, and that is it. The truth is, only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services relate to abortions. Planned Parenthood receives $500 million in federal funding and it is illegal to spend any of that money on abortion services. In CNN ’s article, "Planned Parenthood, by the Numbers”, there are clear statistics about how Planned Parenthood manages the money they receive and how a majority of their work focuses on
Nathaniel Hawthorne- born Hathorne-changed his last name due to his desire to disconnect himself from the Salem Witch Trials and the whole Puritan belief system; seeing as one of his relatives was a judge during this time. Hawthorne, throughout a number of his work, uses his female characters as the stage to show off his feelings towards the Puritanical ideology. He uses the character shells of either an older woman who critically lives by Puritan law, to show how judgmental Puritanism is with anything that doesn’t conform to their beliefs; or has a young pretty “rebel” who goes against Puritan law, which results in showing the corrupt side of Puritanism; using these two character shells in The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil” Conversely, to blatantly show his hatred towards Puritanism, Hawthorne uses Mistress Hibbins in The Scarlet Letter to combat these two roles, and to continue to show off his dislike towards the religion.
Nathaniel Hawthorns short stories, such as, Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, Rappaccini’s Daughter and The Birthmark all have an underlying meaning and demonstrate a similar recurring theme. Hawthorne uses his stories to clarify his beliefs on the competition between nature, religion, and science in everyday life. In all three of his short stories he refuses the concept of science coming before religion or nature. Hawthorne clearly thought if nature or religion was tampered with using science it could only end badly, but more specifically with death. In each of his stories there is a scientific experiment that defies both nature and religion ending harmfully. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s beliefs conclude that God and nature to ultimately be more powerful then science.
I had come to feel that my mother’s love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn’t know why but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just an echo of someone (Page 36).
Before we can look at how grading affects learning Farber suggests we look at how it has affected students (333-334). The greatest effect of being graded happens to the individual. Farber asks, “Did you need grades to learn how to drive?” We have become “grade junkies.” Without the grades students can’t learn (333). Vogel agrees that students believe grades are the motivating factor in learning, but only for the money. Students want the grades because high GPA’s equal high paying jobs (338-339). Another negative effect of grades is that students want the best grade with the least amount of learning but this causes conflict with professors because the professor’s goal is different compared to the student’s (339). Grades have positive effects too. Farber believes that grades give us discipline, but not self-discipline. True self-discipline comes from wanting something not coercion (334). Farber defines self-discipline as revising one paragraph all night because one enjoys it (334.)
Oliver Stone is best known from his portrayals of Vietnam in film. His movies “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July” have won him Academy Awards for best director. These movies not only depicted the violence of war, but also the cultural and psychological issues that the soldiers in these wars had to endure. The majority of his earliest and best known movies center around the Vietnam War. Oliver Stone’s experience in the military gave him a special insight that made his movies feel more authentic and convincing to audiences. These movies portray the struggles that soldiers and veterans of the Vietnam War had to face on and off the battlefield.
Bandura’s social cognitive theory, relates to the way Student A acts. Bandura’s theory focuses on observational learning like imitating and modeling, which Student A does through out the days I have observed. When the teacher teaches her how to say a word, student A imitates the lip movement and sounds the teacher makes. “People acquire a wide range of behaviors, thought, and feelings through observing others’ behaviors and that these observations form an important part of children’s development” (Santrock, 2010, p. 31). As I observed Student A, I saw how she always focused on what the teacher was doing, she would do exactly what the teacher was doing, on my fourth observation, when they were doing math, student A was doing exactly
With the help of United States Government funding, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates have been men and women’s health care providers since 1933. Congressional bills have recently been written to defund this organization because of ethical issues that have risen about abortions carried out in these facilities. The defunding of Planned Parenthood would not only take away affordable family planning for those in need, but the ability to provide life saving cancer screenings and other health services as well.
The Vietnam War was a controversial conflict that plagued the United States for many years. The loss of life caused by the war was devastating. For those who came back alive, their lives were profoundly changed. The impact the war had on servicemen would affect them for the rest of their lives; each soldier may have only played one small part in the war, but the war played a huge part in their lives. They went in feeling one way, and came home feeling completely different. In the book Vietnam Perkasie, W.D. Ehrhart describes his change from a proud young American Marine to a man filled with immense confusion, anger, and guilt over the atrocities he witnessed and participated in during the war.
In the Nathaniel Hawthorne tale, “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” we see and feel the solitude/isolation of the scientific-minded surgeon, Dr. Rappaccini, likewise that of his daughter, Beatrice, and finally that of the main character, Giovanni. Is this solitude not a reflection of the very life of the author?
Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is a short story about how a murderer's conscience overtakes him and whether the narrator is insane or if he suffers from over acuteness of the senses. Poe suggests the narrator is insane by the narrator's claims of sanity, the narrator's actions bring out the narrative irony of the story, and the narrator is insane according to the definition of insanity as it applies to "The Tell Tale Heart".
A symbol is an object used to stand for something else. Symbolism has a hidden meaning lying within it; these meanings unite to form a more detailed theme. Symbolism is widely used in The Scarlet Letter to help the reader better understand the deep meanings Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays throughout his novel. He shows that sin, known or unknown to the community, isolates a person from their community and from God. Hawthorne also shows this by symbols in nature around the town, natural symbols in the heavens, and nature in the forest.