In the short story “The Cold Equations,” Tom Godwin displays the struggles between human nature and survival, but the denouement shows how survival is only reached when doing what you must do to live and save others. In the exposition of the story, Barton, a pilot on a galactic mission to help the sick on another planet; meanwhile, he discovered a stowaway hiding in his ship, Stardust, but delayed any ridding of the extra passenger due to the fact that she was indeed a young woman. Disobeying one of the staples of their regulations in The Frontier (new possible solar system sustainable for humans), Barton was faced with a conflict because any man he would’ve blasted in the blink of an eye, but the surprising voice of a lady’s caught him off guard, saving the young girl’s life for now. After getting to …show more content…
Then, Barton’s commander understands the difficulties of sending a young girl to her death, as these non-earthling humans still respected the norms of Earth. Barton and Commander Delhart realize that with the minimum amount of fuel Barton has, any extra weight would cause a failed mission, killing the two in Stardust and six others that need assistance on the planet, so they allow Marilyn to write letters to both her parents and her brother before her death. With the extra time delegated to her life, she tries to get in touch with her brother on Woden, succeeding only after he gets reception on the planet, her brother gets ahold of her and is able to say their emotional goodbyes. The resolution of the story has Barton propel her into the unforgiving space, leaving only a memory of Marilyn while leaving behind just her two letters that she poured all her heart and feelings into. Towards the beginning of the story, Barton had discovered the stowaway, but delayed to dispose of her because his human nature said to not kill a woman; however, he knows that he needs to rid of Marilyn since her extra weight would eat up some of the needed fuel to deliver the
We learn from conflict that sacrifices must be made to help others. In the novel The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, Hannah was an altruistic person that always put others before herself. Because of her heroic nature, she often risked her life for other people. For example, when Commander Breuer visited the concentration camp to choose who would be killed, Hannah risked execution by attempting to save Reuven. When he was caught, Hannah desperately tried to convince the commander to let the child go. The commandant took Reuven away in spite of her pleas. She was unsuccessful; however, this selfless act could have cost Hannah her life. These dire situations force people to jeopardize their own safety for someone else. Hannah’s protective instincts
The religious imagery in Flannery O'Connor's 'The Life You Save May Be Your Own' gives the story a cynical undertone along with a healthy dose of irony. O'Connor uses allusions to Jesus and Christianity to examine the hypocrisies of the religion and its adherents. Her character Tom T. Shiftlet is portrayed paradoxically as both the embodiment of Christ and an immoral, utterly selfish miscreant. By presenting these polarities side by side within one persona, O'Connor shows the dichotomies between so-called Christian morality and the reality of the Church.
When the man and boy meet people on the road, the boy has sympathy for them, but his father is more concerned with keeping them both alive. The boy is able to get his father to show kindness to the strangers (McCarthy), however reluctantly the kindness is given. The boy’s main concern is to be a good guy. Being the good guy is one of the major reasons the boy has for continuing down the road with his father. He does not see there is much of a point to life if he is not helping other people. The boy wants to be sure he and his father help people and continue to carry the fire. The boy is the man’s strength and therefore courage, but the man does not know how the boy worries about him how the boy’s will to live depends so much on his
In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, is, though written like fiction, a true account of the murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. This evocative story illuminates new insights into the minds of criminals, and how society tends to act as a whole, and achieves its purpose by utilizing many of the techniques presented in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In In Cold Blood, Capote uses symbols of escape and American values, and recurring themes of egotism and family to provide a new perspective on crime and illustrate an in-depth look at why people do the things they do.
Through his storytelling he shows us that the choices we make and the risks we take, when considering outside forces, may be the best course of action. Daniel Woodrell validates this by showing us Ree’s situation and how her course of action, which lead to positive outcomes. Throughout the story Ree is presented with a tough situation where she must decide a quick course of action. She must either wait and see if her father show’s up or take matters into her own hands and hunt him down herself. Deciding a course of action is a natural and necessary process of human life that can lead to either success or failure. We cannot avoid deciding a course of action especially when we have outside forces motivating us to do something fast. “Winter’s Bone” is a short novel that leaves us with an important life lesson. Putting our lives at risk for the ones we love allow us to feel good about our course of action knowing we are protecting them. If we decide courses of actions based on what we think is right for our loved ones, then we will make smarter and better choices that will lead to positive
“The stowaway was not a man—she was a girl in her teens, standing before him in little white gypsy sandals, with the top of her brown, curly head higher than his shoulder, with a faint, sweet scent of perfume coming from her, her smiling face tilted up so her eyes could look unknowing and unafraid into his as she waited for his answer.” Barton, the pilot has the internal conflict having Marilyn jettisoned and saving the six dying people on Woden. Barton wants to save the dying people on Woden, and he also wants to save Marilyn but he has to one. His choice was to have Marilyn jettisoned. Marilyn is such a sweet and nice girl but Barton has to save the people on Woden, he lets Marilyn stay on the ship for a while and talk to her brother ( which was her intent ) Eventually, he had to jettison her because he has to balance the cold equation in order to save the people in time on
Richard Mulcaster, a British instructor of English, once wrote, “Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward.” Mulcaster recognizes that both genetic and environmental factors determine the type of a person one becomes. Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood gives the reader an opportunity to see prime examples of how nature and nurture influence one’s character. Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood introduces the reader to two men; Richard Eugene Hickock known as Dick throughout the novel, and Perry Edward Smith whose lives of crime are almost identical; although both Perry and Richard come from very humble backgrounds, their childhood particularly their family life, has very little in common. It is not until later in their lives that we begin to see similarities between the two men. Despite their differences, Perry’s upbringing and Dick’s genetic disposition allow both men to share a disregard for life, which becomes apparent on the night they gruesomely burglarized and murdered four innocent members of the Clutter family.
The main purpose of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is to offer insight into the minds of the murderers of the Clutter family, Dick and Perry. However, asking an audience to be open-minded about men who have committed such heinous crimes is no easy task. Capote instead methodically and rather artfully combines imagery, parallel structure, and perspective in two separate passages found between pages 107-113 to contribute to his characterization of Perry and Dick where the former is deserving of sympathy and the latter, disgust.
When the narrator introduced the main character of the story, the man, he made it clear that the man was in a perilous situation involving the elements. The man was faced with weather that was 75 degrees below zero and he was not physically or mentally prepared for survival. London wrote that the cold "did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold."(p.1745) At first when the man started his journey to the camp, he felt certain that he could make it back to camp before dinner. As the trip progressed, the man made mistake after mistake that sealed his fate. The man's first mistake was to step into a pool of water and soak his legs to the knees. This blunder forced the man to build a fire to dry his wet socks and shoes so his feet would not freeze and become frostbitten. When the man began to build a fire he failed to notice that he was doing so under a large, snow laden spruce tree where he was getting his firewood. When the man had a small fire that was beginning to smolder the disturbance to the tree caused the snow to tumble to the ground and extinguish the fire. "It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open."(1750).
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.
“To Build a Fire”, a short story written by Jack London, is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner and his wolf-dog companion who are traveling in the Yukon Territory to meet fellow miners. The miner is the protagonist and the wolf-dog companion is the foil because the wolf-dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. The central theme of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature. “To Build a Fire” tells of a man traveling in the extreme cold through the Yukon Territory. Before heading out on his journey, the man is warned not to travel alone in the extreme cold, but he travels any way. The man faces many hardships while on his journey. Despite his effort to stay warm and survive, the man freezes to death before he reaches his destination. The wolf-dog in the story studies the situation and knows that traveling is not a good idea. The wolf-dog stays with the miner until his death. Once the miner dies, the wolf-dog finishes his journey by heading off to the miners’ camp on his own. The most argued point of this short story is the reason for the protagonist’s death. Even though the miner in “To Build a Fire” eventually panics after being unable to start a fire, he struggles in the wilderness of the Yukon Territory and ultimately finds his death due to ignorance caused by a lack intuition and imagination.
...can be a life-changing experience. McCandless entered the wild as an overly confident hitchhiker and left as a self-accepting and humble man. He thought that human relationships were futile, he was impervious to materialism, and that he could understand nature on a scientific level. However, McCandless left the wild with a newfound appreciation for humanity, some clarity on his purpose in life, and the ability to create his own legacy. Many people finish reading Into the Wild and form negative opinions about McCandless’ reckless behavior. However, it is important to focus on how being in the wild brought McCandless closer to understanding himself. Into the Wild should motivate humans to participate in explore the wilderness to discover the true meaning of life.
In her cultural criticism of Jack London's "To Build a Fire", Jill Widdicombe explores the question of whether the story's protagonist might have perished from the extreme cold of the Klondike winter even if with a traveling companion. She describes the brutality of the winter weather and, alluding to the man's confidence in his ability to survive the weather, describes it as "behavior most of us can understand" - especially if we are accustomed to warmer surroundings. She states: "the extreme cold of frosty landscapes--or "The White Silence", as London describes it--is so quiet and abstract that it does not immediately appear to be lethal".
In conclusion the story is about a man’s struggle to make it in 75 below temp and making a fire is the only way for him to survive. London shows the theme of ruggedness by how the man seems to have no fear of a temperature of fifty below zero. The story teaches the readers that even though we may want to travel alone in the outdoors, we should always travel with some friends or stay within our limits. The man in the story is making a nine-hour trek across the frozen Yukon with only his dog in the biting cold, but after many calamities he freezes to death. He knew he was going to die if he didn’t get warm soon enough, but the cold got the best of him by freezing his arms.
What lengths should one go to in order to survive? This is a question which has challenged the human race for generations and to which no satisfactory answer exists. In the modern world, this issue is examined theoretically, but rarely confronts individuals, with the exception of the most destitute. However, in harsh environments and forbidding territories, this matter becomes very real and pressing. Nature pays no attention to the arbitrary emotions of man, demanding only the forfeiture of the sorrowfully short life granted to him. Many would argue that in order to delay the inevitable conclusion awaiting every man, humans must act upon their primal intuition rather than their emotions. Jack London’s “The Law of Life” includes this naturalistic viewpoint that human survival instinct drives individuals more than feelings or compassion. London shows this through his protagonist Old Koshkoosh’s past experiences and tribal upbringing, his view on life, and the actions of his family members.