In popular culture a person is admired for having the quality of doing what is right and the ability to overcome any obstacles. In works of fiction these people usually end up fighting violence with violence until they defeat their adversaries. Real life is much more different. In the book Prisoner of Tehran, when Marina is only sixteen years old she is arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Her life is filled with great sorrows and tragedies that would crush the spirit of most people, but Marian is able to endure these hardships. Marina has a very strong faith in God and she is able to accept what she can not change and she refuses to give up no matter how bad things become for her.
Marina is a devote Christian her faith gives her the strength to deal with hardships that she encounters in her life and her faith gives her hope that things will get better if she perseveres. "Second strike: my breath stopped in my throat. How could anything hurt so much? I tried to think of a way to keep myself bear it. I couldn't scream, because there wasn't enough air left in my lungs. Third strike: the scream of the cable and the blinding agony that followed. The "Hail Mary" filled my head" (Nemat 18). When Marina is being tortured the pain is unbearable. They only way to stop herself from being torture would be for her to give up her friends so they too can be tortured. She doesn't want to be the reason that her friends are tortured, so she can't name them. She has to let them torture her and she has to endue the unbelievable pain. When she can not imagine going on her faith saves her. Without thinking the words of "Hail Mary" come to her mind. She says the "Hail Mary" and this gives her the strength to survive her torture session.
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...ith and inner strength and her ability to endure pain and suffering. Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer could almost have been written about her, when he wrote,
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
Works Cited
Nemat, Marina. Prisoner of Tehran. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2008. Print.
"The Serenity Prayer." Cptryon.org, n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2014.
special/serenity.html>.
...he shows us her character, not by how she gives herself respect, but by the continued respect that she gives to others: even her tormenters. Her secret shame was kept inside, and it was an impossible burden to bear. She was brave.
In There Will Be Wolves, Ursula, which is the protagonist, is a healer. But due to the old Christian rules, women were not allowed to heal, but Ursula did. So they say Ursula was a witch and wanted to punish her. The bishop was a powerful person. He sentenced Ursula and brought her to the trial and tried to burn her, but her father Master William saved her. They then brought her to the cell. Until one day, her father came to the cell and released her, she was pardoned by the god, she had a chance to compliment her sin, as long as she help the Crusade free Jerusalem.
She was a writer who suffered from Lupus. Her father died of the same illness when she was thirteen. Her Catholic beliefs reflected in her work, as well as the implementation of violence and darkness ironically used in her short stories. The titles in the stories give the readers an idea that the stories are the opposite of what the titles really state. She uses metaphors and similes to describe the characters and the settings of the stories. Each story relates to the darkness of the characters: people with racial prejudice, ignorance, and evil. Each story ends in a tragedy. The use of irony allows her to transport a meaning to each story that is not easy for readers to understand.
While showing how brave and unselfish she was, she also showed that she was fragile and not as strong as she used to be. “A black dog with a lolling tongue came up out of the weeds by the ditch. She was meditating, and not ready, and when he came at her she only hit him a little with her cane. Over she went in the ditch, like a little puff of milkweed.” Even though she hit the dog only a little, it caused her to fall into a ditch. At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke. "My grandson. It was my memory had left me. There I sat and forgot why I made my long trip." This shows how her mind went blank, causing her to forget why she had made the journey.
...portant than anything and she did not let anyone or anything stop her from her main goal. This plays themes were based on love, passion, rage and vengeance.
...ualities and influences we want to accept as truth instead of blindly accepting the book of myths. She encourages women to descend the ladder and find the “thing itself” and the meaning that thing has for each individual woman.
Marina Abramovic work is about self abuse, self discipline, and unreasonable punishment and great courage. Through the conditions she puts herself and her audience in her performance. In my opinion, her main goal is not to only completely change the way her performance is seen by the public, but to push the performance the same line as fine art.
Throughout Saving Grace by Lee Smith, there is a focus on religion, as well as how a character would act regardless of their faith. This can be seen especially in the character of Lamar Shepherd. The transformation regarding religion lacks results regarding a change in action. This can be seen in the short time he has presence within the novel, though his actions left their mark on the Shepherd family. The value of Lamar’s religion or place in religion can be explored by his actions, especially his actions towards others. Each action taken by Lamar while in the Shepherd residence can be explored regarding a specific section in the bible.
... others to do what she needed them to do. Her subjects listed to what she had to say and were encouraged enough by her words not to give up and to continue their journey to freedom.
In conclusion, the book is well set, with a good introduction and interactive body. It has been recommended for used in literature in both secondary school and colleges. This will help the intended to have an awareness of women life in prison and faces of loss, hope, and human attitude and emotions in the prison life. The volume can be termed as companion for females both in the prison and outside prison. The issue racism has been well exposed in the book and the role of women artist in racism.
...gth in self and faith to stand up with the power of God knowing already that she was going to die. Burning at the stake for what she believed fueled her country and now her heroism lives on in art and writings.
Moreover, she’s a pain hider. She hid sorrow from the whole world all her life, built over it and stood headstrong every single time.
tragedies that befell her. She is an example of a melancholic character that is not able to let go of her loss and therefore lets it t...
The discovery of oil reserves in the Persian Gulf marked the beginning of the evolution of Iran to a modern industrial nation. (Document A) As the demand for crude oil skyrocketed, the wealth generated by Iran soared. The distribution of this wealth became a matter of contention. Additionally, with the transformation of Iran to an industrial nation, the introduction of western culture posed a problem for the strict Islamic community. The Iranian Revolution was a result of the economic, political, cultural and religious conflict that occurred within its borders.
In many aspects of our lives, the use of faith as a basis for knowledge can be found. Whether it is faith in the advice of your teacher, faith in a God or faith in a scientific theory, it is present. But what is faith? A definition of faith in a theory of knowledge context is the confident belief or trust in a knowledge claim by a knower, without the knower having conclusive evidence. This is because if a knowledge claim is backed up by evidence, then we would use reason rather than faith as a basis for knowledge . If we define knowledge as ‘justified true belief’, it can be seen that faith, being without justification, can never fulfill this definition, and so cannot be used as a reliable basis for knowledge. However, the question arises, what if a certain knowledge claim lies outside of the realm of reason? What if a knowledge claim cannot be justified by empirical evidence and reasoning alone, such as a religious knowledge claim? It is then that faith allows the knower to decide what is knowledge and what is not, when something cannot be definitively proved through the use of evidence. When assessing faith as a basis for knowledge in the natural sciences, the fact arises that without faith in the research done before us, it is impossible to develop further knowledge on top of it. Yet at the same time, if we have unwavering faith in existing theories, they would never be challenged, and so our progress of knowledge in the natural sciences would come to a standstill. Although I intend to approach this essay in a balanced manner, this essay may be subject to a small degree of bias, due to my own non-religious viewpoint.