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Concepts of altruism
Concepts of altruism
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Emmett is a thirty-five year old man with lots of pimples on his face. He has headaches and a bad temper all the time. He used to go to Murray State but he dropped out and owes the government over five hundred dollars. He went to jail because he got arrested for the flag incident in the courthouse tower. Emmett doesn't have a job, a family or a girlfriend. His daily activities are: eat breakfast with his old friends at McDonalds; play video games; and watch M.A.S.H. on TV. Emmett is an incredibly sluggish person. This was my first impression of Emmett me when I started to read this book. However, by reading more and more about Emmett, I figured out he is a really loving person. He shows his love and consideration for his family and friends more than for himself. Besides, he never does anything to hurt anyone. Emmett is just an altruistic person whom I think is the model of the true beauty of all mankind.
Emmett used to be a good student in school until Dwayne's death during the Vietnam War; it was a turning point in Emmett's life. Emmett joined the army voluntarily because he wanted to comfort Irene by taking revenge for Dwayne. "I felt I owed something to Emmett because he'd gone over there for my sake." (171) But good deeds don't always work well. During the war, Emmett was poisoned by Agent Orange and had to cope with a bunch of physical as well as mental illnesses for the rest of his life. Emmett was discharged after he came back from the war. He used to live with Irene before she married Larry and moved to Lexington. However, Emmett was so considerate and did not want to be a burden to Irene. He showed his love for his sister by sacrificing himself in the war and being happy for her in her new marriage.
Emmett hid his love from Anita because he thought Anita was too good for him. All the lingering effects he got after the war made Emmett keep a great distance from Anita. He though it would be a tortuous relationship if Anita married him, because they might not be able to have sex and start a family properly.
War changes a person in ways that can never be imagined. Living in a war as well as fighting in one is not an experience witnessed in everyday life. Seeing people die every time and everywhere you go can be seen as an unpleasant experience for any individual such as Henry. The experiences that Henry had embraced during the Vietnam War have caused him to become an enraged and paranoid being after the war. It has shaped him to become this individual of anxiety and with no emotions. The narrator says:
Eddie Costello’s current view of the war is as a "sore asshole", but he says he started out as a "seventeen year old adolescent patriot". Eddies experience is similar to Johns in that he initially went to great lengths to participate in the war, lying about his age to get a munitions factory job at only 14.
There is O’Brien the writer/narrator, O’Brien the soldier, and Timmy O’Brien, the little boy. All three characters express different thoughts and emotional surroundings that are causing tension with one another. For instance, each character wrestles with the concept of death differently. Timmy O’Brien had to learn at the young age of nine to accept death; soldier “O’Brien” attempts to find a way to merge that lesson to deal with death during the war. O’Brien the writer connects these two lessons to help him understand death and help him transition from Vietnam back to the civilian life. The connection and the understanding of death are due to the internal conflict he feels as he tries to make peace with the different phases of his life. He searches for the love that he felt as a boy, but realizes that he will never encounter the same love again. The conflict between the three different stages of his life reveals itself as pain and guilt. Pain for the loss of his love ones, and guilt for being present during the death of his war mate but not being able to do anything about
When the war came her family did all they could to support the Confederate cause. Her brother William who married Jeanie Hazen Knoxville in 1860 will serve as a Governmental clerk. Much of her information about what was going on in the war came from her older brother William. She will write down every information that she receives from in her diary. She wanted to right all this down so that her other brother Johnnie could read it after the war is over. Johnnie is the brother that is captured by the Northerners in the war at Missionary Ridge. He served in the nineteenth regiment. When her brother is captured this absolutely devastates her. Her hatred even grows even more for the North. Ellen Renshaw House truly cared deeply about her brother and after his death after the war she refuses to write anymore. Her familial roots in the confederacy will continue with her Uncle Frank who serves as a general in the war. He will come to visit her one time after the war which is the time when Johnnie dies. Ellen sees her Uncle kind of as foolish thinking that someone is coming to arrest him. The reason for that is he is rejected the right to take the oath. He is thrown out of his own Brother in Law’s house for
When first looking at the essay there is a very noticeable aspect to first page of it; that would be the picture of Emmett Till’s deformed body lying bloated and lynched within his casket. The picture strikes an unforgettable image in the reader’s head that is meant to instill the question of how exactly someone could do this to another human being none-the-less a 14 year old teenager. The visual invokes some strong feelings that most people cannot ignore or suppress; those feelings include disgust, anger, fear, and sadness. These feelings are evident in the picture due to the graphic nature of the image and the memories it invokes in readers of past situations they had endured. Being a part of the first page of the essay is what makes this rhetorical device so effective, this puts an image into the reader’s mind of what the African American descent had to endure during the time period and continued to endure for years to come. The image itself had an enormous impact on the civil rights mo...
Modeled after the post-civil war era of the American south, Falkner transports the reader to the fictitious town of Jefferson and into the home of Miss Emily Grierson, a mysterious figure and longtime resident of Yoknapatawpha County. While the story begins with the death of Miss Emily, Faulkner invites the reader to step backwards through time where one is acquainted with Emily’s struggle to find a love and happiness in an emerging modern society. Faulkner then returns to Emily’s death, revealing a dark secret found in the shape of the decomposed corpse of Homer Barron, Emily’s one love interest who was thought to have abandoned her many years earlier. Throughout the story, Faulkner ties common objects such as a rose, a house, a watch on a gold chain, rat poison, and even the character Homer himself to other elements of the story. It is through these associations, the reader finds deeper understanding and perhaps hidden meaning.
...s story he writes about how earlier in Emily’s life she refuses to let the town’s people in her house even though there is a strong odor that is coming from her property. In this section her father has just passed away and was abandoned by a man who she wanted to marry. This section she becomes very depressed. In section three it talks about how Emily is starting to come down with an illness after all of the depressing events she had to endure. In sections four and five Faulkner describes how there is fear throughout the towns people is that of which Emily is going to possibly poison herself. A while later she then she passes away. In section five is when the truth is revealed to the public about her sickness. Faulkner uses the view point of an unnamed town member while he uses a third person perspective to show the general corrosion of the southern town’s people.
The story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is about slavery and the events of how poorly slaves were treated during the 1850’s and also a family trying to escape their owner’s farm. The owner of the slaves is the family of the Shelbys’. Mr. Shelby wasn’t the wealthiest man, in fact he had a lot of debt from his farm. Mr. Shelby had decided that the only way that he could get out of debt, is if he would sell his slaves to another family so they could work for them. He had meet with Mr. Haley and decided he would sell his best selling workers to this gentleman to pay off all of his farm debt. Mr. Haley had bought the young Tom and Eliza’s son Harry. Eliza was overhearing the conversation between the slave traders and once she had heard that her son was being sold to another owner, she had made a run for it and attempted to escape to Canada with Harry. She had also contacted her husband George Harris and she was thinking that they could all meet in Canada and get away from their slavery. As Tom had gotten stuck with Mr. Shelby, he had saw a girl drowning in the water and had went and saved her. Luckily for Tom, the father of the girl had decided to buy Tom and be the girl’s worker but sadly the mother of the daughter did not like slaves that much and the slaves had to do everything perfect or they would get beat. As Tom is Eva’s personal servant, they start to spend a lot more time with each other and then they start to become closer and like each other too. As the two had gotten closer, Tom and Eva find out that Eva is very sick and then she won’t be living for that much longer. Tom was very close to freedom ever since Eva had died, but Eva wasn’t the only death in that family. Soon after, Eva’s father had went to a bar and g...
William Faulkner portrays Emily’s character as a woman who is emotionally and mentally unstable. William Faulkner goes on to state the events that might have led to Emily’s mental state. William Faulkner interprets the short story as a dark and puzzling one. The depiction of Emily Grierson in the short story is unheard of considering the historical period. William Faulkner associates each character with a problem. For example, Emily’s strange behavior, Mr. Grierson’s controlling nature, Tobe’s lack of freedom, and Homer Barron’s unsure of his feelings toward Emily. William Faulkner’s short story interpretation of Emily’s character was unique and
Adjusting back to a more civilian life was nearly impossible for veterans returning home. War became live and well inside the homes of families who housed a Vietnam veteran. Stanton Book would find himself having flashbacks of the war that he would never actually speak about. One night, after Independence Day, Eli awakes when he hears screams coming from his mother, Loretta. Immediately after, Eli finds himself in his parents’ bedroom viewing his father choking his mother. Shocked and lost for words, Eli whispers out, “Daddy” and Stanton falls to the floor (House 203). While straining to speak Loretta states, “He was asleep,” and Eli thought to himself, “I knew what she was saying, Don’t worry. He wasn’t trying to kill me. It’s all right” (House 203). The war completely took hold of Stanton’s mind and was a threat to his family. A recent study from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs reveals that, “Families of Veterans with PTSD experience more physical and verbal aggression”. Eli’s once peaceful home became the Vietnam War within itself. No longer could anyone sleep comfortably with the risk of Stanton having a mental outbreak. Throughout the novel the story is told from Eli’s point of view as ten-year-old boy, however, in the epilogue Eli is a grown man with a daughter of his own. He explains that he left
Like any other child his age, Emmett had the potential to live out a wonderful life. Although afflicted with polio, Emmett Till still managed to enjoy a happy childhood in the care of his mother. Even at school Emmett maintained stable friendships with many of his classmates due to his charm and comedic personality. When Emmett was not spending time at school, he was engrossed in baseball with his friends. Emmett’s mother saw his affection for the sport and would drive him and his friends to the baseball field for them to take part in the sport they truly loved. As he grew older, Emmett volunteered himself to his community. He would perform errands and chores for his neighbors without asking for a single penny, but it did not take long before Emmett desired to explore the rest of the nation and eventually took a train with his cousins back to Mississippi (Aretha 13-14). He was cherished by people who knew him and who were close with him. Emmett was enjoying his life until they robbed him of his adolescence. Before Mamie let him go off to Mississippi, “ … she had drilled him on proper etiquette over and over again” (Aretha 16). His mother informed him of the racism and violence directed towards blacks down south, but he paid little attention to what she told him. Often in the southern states, “ … whites
After being seriously injured in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Tom Bridwell spent some weeks in a hospital, and then went home to recuperate. Jem liked having his father home, but it seemed that they couldn’t even sit down to dinner without the conversation turning to war. Jem’s grandfather could never understand why Jem’s dad didn’t share his beliefs. Tom suddenly has to leave for the war again. Jem is being torn between the two men he loves. He comes to believe what his father believes in and wants to go fight for Mr. Lincoln, but chores at the farm, his age, and his grandfather is what keeps him home.
...ecret lover, but he intervened and saved the woman. He also saved Sarah, a widow of a Confederate soldier, from grief by giving her the comfort of having someone to hold on to as well as saving her from three Federal raiders. And in the end, in an attempt to save Ada, Ruby, and Stobrod, he dies. This is his final act for redemption. He finally is released into a spiritual realm away from war.
Faulkner has created a masterful piece of story telling in taking the reader through a suspenseful and captivating story. The effective use of foreshadowing does not diminish the climax of the story but rather enhance it by not giving out the details, but leaving it to the imagination of the reader. Through the organization of the structure of the storyline mixing with clever clues, Faulkner transforms Emily through the many tragic stages of her life and the ever-accompanying presence of death.
Although Tom is a slave, it seems that he is very different from his other enslaved peers. Uncle Tom is known for his kindness, honesty, and his strong religious beliefs. Unlike other slaves, Uncle Tom shows true resilience when it comes to the institution of slavery. For example, even when Uncle Tom was on the verge of death, he pleads with his devilish master Simon Legree, to not go through with killing him. Uncle Tom states “Mas’r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I’d give ye my heart’s blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I’d give em freely, as the Lord gave His for me. O Mas’r! Don’t bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than ‘twill me! Do the worst you can, my troubles “ll be over soon; but, if ye don’t repent, yours won’t never end” (410). This quote is the best example of Uncle Tom’s character traits. Although he is most certainly going to die, he still wants the best for even the person that will eventually kill him. With all of the events Uncle Tom went through, he remained true to his beliefs. Although he was upset when he had to leave the comfort of the Shelby’s, Uncle Tom did what he could to make the best out of the situation. Stowe’s portrayal of Uncle Tom makes the reader believe that Uncle Tom is not only a