In the novel “The Road” Cormac McCarthy and the Short Fiction “Lullaby” by Leslie Marmon Silko, both authors acknowledge how happiness is a part of living whether past or present. Relating to the real world, the authors showed through the characters in their story that no matter how defeated we might be feeling in our present lives, there was happiness somewhere deep in the past and our lives has not always been sad. In addition, the authors also disclosed how this past happiness sometimes bring pain when remembered at present because it only calls intricate attention to the current unhappiness making it to be felt more. Although in other cases, our past happiness can be hope for a better future in our sorrowful present life. Through the use …show more content…
Ayah saw that there was nothing between her and the stars.
The light was crystalline.
There was no shimmer, no distortion through earth haze.
She breathed the clarity of the half moon and the stars.” (Silko 343, 344).
Although Ayah did not have dreams, the situation with the heavenly bodies demonstrated that she was finally at peace with the world and it is time for her to answer the call of death. Furthermore, the alignments and clarity of the heavenly bodies signifies the past memories when everything was normal and all her kids were still with her. In both stories, the main characters succumbing to death means that they want to go back to the past when they were happy. And dying is the only way to achieve that as the dreams and peaceful heavenly bodies showed.
Not only did McCarthy and Silko showed, through the use of memories and flashbacks, the strength we get from recalling a happy past in a challenging present live, they also showed the pains that we can get from recalling this happy past and the pain we can give to others. Although in both stories, the characters succumbed to the death call to their formal lives, I believe that the pains we get from recalling a happy past although might be far reaching, gives strength to fight successfully in the desolate present we are
Humans are born with pursuits: some search for fame, some go after money, some seek achievements in professional fields, and some only wish their lives to be content . If one wants to become content with life, one should alter one’s old ways of living and embrace new things. Both in Cathy Jewison’s The Prospector’s Trail and Eva Lis Wuorio’s The Singing Silence, the main characters used to be dissatisfied with life. In search for true happiness, they begin to try things that they have never experienced before. At the end, the two protagonists find that their new activities can bring them happiness, and they start to live satisfying lives.
Listening is an important skill that many people take for granted. Listening empathelicay means putting oneself in “someone else’s shoes”. Listening only to get information takes away much of what the speaker is saying, by being able to empathize with someone one is on the same wavelength. In this world, there exist many different cultures and subcultures. In Graciela Limon’s novel, Song of the Hummingbird, Huitzitzilin tells her story as Father Benito listens. She tells Father Benito the native view of what has happened- she tells him things that he has never heard of from his people. Huitzitzilin and Father Benito are products of two different cultures: Aztecs and Spaniards, respectively. Limon portrayed that the Spaniards didn’t even try to understand the Aztecs ways. Limon uses the literary elements of characterization, point of view, and internal conflict to show that in order to understand another culture, one must be able to treat his/her’s history with the same compassion and understanding as if it was their own's.
People push being happy on society as a total must in life; sadness is not an option. However, the research that has conducted to the study of happiness speaks otherwise. In this essay Sharon Begley's article "Happiness: Enough Already" critiques and analyzes societies need to be happy and the motivational affects it has on life. Begley believes that individuals do not always have to be happy, and being sad is okay and even good for us. She brings in the research of other professionals to build her claim that extreme constant happiness is not good for people. I strongly agree that we need to experience sadness to build motivation in life and character all around.
Through this short story we are taken through one of Vic Lang’s memories narrated by his wife struggling to figure out why a memory of Strawberry Alison is effecting their marriage and why she won’t give up on their relationship. Winton’s perspective of the theme memory is that even as you get older your past will follow you good, bad or ugly, you can’t always forget. E.g. “He didn’t just rattle these memories off.” (page 55) and ( I always assumed Vic’s infatuation with Strawberry Alison was all in the past, a mortifying memory.” (page 57). Memories are relevant to today’s society because it is our past, things or previous events that have happened to you in which we remembered them as good, bad, sad, angry etc. memories that you can’t forget. Winton has communicated this to his audience by sharing with us how a memory from your past if it is good or bad can still have an effect on you even as you get older. From the description of Vic’s memory being the major theme is that it just goes to show that that your past can haunt or follow you but it’s spur choice whether you chose to let it affect you in the
Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking and column writer for The Guardian, explores the human need to seek for happiness and its connection to the Museum of Failures in his article Happiness is a Glass Half Empty. Burkeman’s purpose to writing this essay is to give readers a new view on how to seek happiness – embrace negativity and expect the worst. Burkeman’s use of a friendly, almost informal tone to help relate to his readers is a brilliant attempt to catch his reader’s attention and hold it, therefore enabling the delivery of logic seem almost effortless.
In the essay Why Happiness, Why Now? Sara Ahmed talks about how one’s goal in life is to find happiness. Ahmed begins her essay with skepticism and her disbeliefs in happiness. She shows her interest in how happiness is linked to a person’s life choices. Ahmed also tries to dig deeper, and instead of asking an unanswerable question, “what is Happiness?” she asks questions about the role of happiness in one’s life.
“She sat down with her back against the wide cottonwood tree, feeling the rough bark on her back bones; she faced east and listened to the wind and snow sing a high-pitched Yeibechei song. Out of the wind she felt warmer, and she could watch the wide fluffy snow fill in her tracks, steadily, until the direction she had come from was gone.” (225) From the beginning of Leslie Marmon Silkos’ essay “Lullaby”, you can tell the character has a connection with nature; it gives them a sense of a calming ease. The main character of this short story is Ayah, who has a strong connection with nature. The connection that Ayah has with nature helps her understand the environment around her; she’s able to detect whether something is right or wrong within
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
Lullaby, by Leslie Marmon Silko, is a story about and old, Navajo woman that is reflecting on some of the saddest events in her life. Lullaby shows how the white people have damaged the Native American life style, culture and traditions. Loss and symbolism are two major themes in this story.
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.
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.
Happiness can be easily defined as the state of well-being and contentment gained by personal life experiences through either direct or indirect connections with the world around us. The people we meet and the trails we go through in life add together to create a hopefully happy life. To be happy in life is indeed the only way to enjoy it. Therefore it’s no wonder that we all strive to achieve this idea of happiness. This interest in the search for true happiness has become a major factor in our modern age. Looking back at our history, the moods of many Americans have seemed to become stagnate even when we experience a rise in salaries and overall life expectance. This begs the question as to what then
The article discusses happiness and a few of the many complications associated with happiness. The article is named “Nation The Happiness of Pursuit.” The authors Kluger, Aciman, and Steinmetz wrote this article for “Time Magazine”. It discusses happiness in many ways, including details about what happiness is from a neurological and physical standpoint. The article begins by examining how Americans were happy in the past and
Notwithstanding happiness has long presented a conflict for the complex human condition. This is because the ideas we have about happiness are inherently paradoxical. If pleasure is what ultimately what brings us happiness than we are ignoring a crucial fact; in life pain and suffering are inevitable. Life can be described as a series of highs and lows. We are constantly apprehended by uncontrollable forces of nature. Unfortunately we can’t dismiss the fact that our human experience is rife with things like natural disasters, illness, and death.