Wanted: Identity Joe Christmas in “Light in August” and Joseph in “Dangling man” are both on the hunt for an identity. For different reasons and in different ways these two characters begin a quest, in which the ultimate goal is the self-determination. In Saul Bellow´s “Dangling man” it is portrayed the figure of Joseph, a middle-age Canadian Jew that is waiting for his army draft in World War II. In a diary format, the book explains Joseph´s decay through a compilation of his thoughts and feelings during the never-ending wait. In this period Joseph undergoes not only the loss of some of his good friends, but also the deterioration of the relation with his brother´s family and his own wife, which lead him to live in isolation from society. …show more content…
He believes that one’s quest should be to seek the absolute freedom of the individual but he is still uncertain of which is the best way to successfully accomplish it, following one’s feelings and instincts or making reasonable decisions. In order to reach the desired goals one should be in permanent dialogue with the world, alienation is not an option. Finally, he expresses what worries him the most: how to live. Old Joseph was someone who lived according to a life-plan and he forced its execution against all odds. Old Joseph’s answer to the question “How should a good man live; what ought he to do?” was to follow the plan, but he soon realized the problems that a hypothetically perfect system generates when applied in the real world. He tried to impose the plan to his wife, his niece Etta and his friends, and failed miserably. At this point Joseph describes himself as a grenade ready to detonate and he betrays his own plan, he lives alienated from everyone in his room unable to carry out his ideas or move forward towards his …show more content…
Joe absorbed McEarchern’s gender discourses, but, as a representation of the revolutionary movement he was trying to carry out, he kept his little self-determination as in “My name aint McEachern. My name is Christmas”. After his coming of age and leaving his foster home, Joe began a journey that took him around the country, developing all kinds of jobs and merging will all kinds of unstable people like him, which gave him a sense of comfort because they made him feel a little less strange. Although he interacts with other people, he is unable to connect with someone, thus he chooses to live in isolation as a defence mechanism. Joanna Burden, an anti-slavery foreigner that maintained a personal relation with Joe, is the first person in his entire life that did not discriminate him because of his blackness nor did she punish him for being an outsider. During the time they were together, Joe showed himself as vulnerable and all his fears arise, making him a self-destructive person. It can be said that Joanna was the last, and only, hope for Joe to be saved, but the outcome was just the opposite. Joe felt threatened that Joanna was invading his little kingdom, his definition of self; thus he became his own enemy and reacted violently and ended up murdering her, sealing with it his own
Firstly, through Joseph’s memories and thoughts, conflict is revealed by him remembering his experiences with his son. Joseph recalls the first time he went camping overnight in the woods with David. That evening, Joseph knew his son was awake, “but was not sure whether [he] had been happy or just tired. He could not ask him, even then.” Joseph always had troubles talking to his son, but hoped that his actions had made an impact on his son, leaving him a time to remember and enjoy; a time he was happy. Joseph knew his son was bright, “proud of the many new things [he] could read and understand,” but worried that would lead him to going away. Joseph remembered the day David went off to
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
People one can never really tell how person is feeling or what their situation is behind closed doors or behind the façade of the life they lead. Two masterly crafted literary works present readers with characters that have two similar but very different stories that end in the same result. In Herman Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener” readers are presented with Bartleby, an interesting and minimally deep character. In comparison to Gail Godwin’s work, “A Sorrowful Woman” we are presented with a nameless woman with a similar physiological state as Bartleby whom expresses her feelings of dissatisfaction of her life. Here, a deeper examination of these characters their situations and their ultimate fate will be pursued and delved into for a deeper understanding of the choice death for these characters.
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
William Faulkner, an American author, wrote the novel, Light in August, in which Joe Christmas is at the center of the story. Joe Christmas is an orphan who is of biracial descent. At a young age, Christmas was adopted by a man named McEachern. When Christmas became older, he killed his father. From that point on, Christmas wandered about until he reached Jefferson, Mississippi where he fell in love with Joanna Burden, whom he also killed later on in the story. For this reason, along with numerous others, Christmas was lynched at the conclusion of this novel. William Faulkner carefully integrates several different ideas that can lead to a man’s solitude. According to the book William Faulkner by Harold Bloom, “…his fiction is steeped in the tones and emotions of the Deep South” (11). This holds true for Light in August since there is plenty of racism and hatred towards blacks. In William Faulkner’s novel, Light in August, Joe Christmas’s identity, psychological attitude, and resemblance to Christ are revealed through his isolation from society.
Sometimes the things that Joe does are traditional white behavior. When Joe dies his meanness left him friendless, with only Janie by his side. After Joe Starks dies, Janie realizes that her grandmother had "taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon…and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love" (85).
In a way, much of the story comes across with Joe acting more like a
...ferent from their peers has isolated Bernard, Helmholtz, and John, it has also deepened their individuality. This scenario, at a lesser level, often plays out in modern day. People possess a natural desire to fit in and often are willing to forego individuality in order to do so. Though one may gain a facade of happiness as a result of fitting in, being truthful to oneself and expressing one’s free will allows for honest expression of individuality, a concept much greater than such a facade. A society without unique individuals is a society without humanity, and, as demonstrated through these characters’ experience, does not function. Ultimately, people must realize that individuality, knowledge, and raw emotion is more important to society than superficial happiness.
The various ways in which manhood appear and emerge within cultures has an extensive examination and definition of the meaning of a man and how a man needs to be. The notion of manhood and masculinity is shown in the main characters of the works of J. M. Coetzee and Toni Morrison. Boyhood: Scenes from a Provincial Life by J. M. Coetzee and Home by Toni Morrison are both set in different places with different cultures which result in different meanings of what a man is. Coetzee’s autobiographical fiction novel, Boyhood, takes place in South Africa during the time of the conflicts of cultural identity and race. Boyhood tells the story of the main character John, a young boy who is smart, intellectual and sensitive. John always feels unique and different, he always thinks about himself and about his uniqueness. His uniqueness and alienation from his environment cuts him off as a child and affects his growing conditions and manhood. On the other hand, Morrison’s, Home, tells the story of the aftermath of the main character, Frank Money’s, life. Money, 24 year-old, participated in the Korean War and then got discharged from the Army. During the war Money, killed many lives, including the soul of a young Korean girl that he never forgets; Money’s two best friends were both killed during the period of the war. These events left Money with a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which affected his sanity and manhood. While the literature shows how culture, race, people and events, can affect manhood this paper will study and explore the theme of manhood differently between the main characters Coetzee and Money.
to feel a connection with Joe as we are made aware of his emotions for
Joe Gargery is married to Pip's sister, Mrs. Joe. Although Mrs. Joe treats Pip with resentment and constantly reminds him that he is a burden, Joe is a loyal friend and ally to Pip. Joe loves and supports Pip even when Pip is ashamed and abandons him. In Pip's childhood, Joe is the only one who shows him love. Their relationship is based more in equality than of father/son which allows Pip to ask questions and experience some sort of communication with another person. Mrs. Joe treats Pip harshly and never shows him any love. Pip eventually becomes embarrassed of Joe and his home.
Joseph as an individual started as a lost, depressed individual with no insight on what is happening in his life which leads to constant flashbacks to his father. The loss of Joseph 's father pointed out the feeling of how many children across this world might feel especially in places where conflict and war are still existent. This story did have a little bit of the plot focused on racism but the idea of being new and unique dominated the
Primo Levi was an Italian Jewish Anti-fascist who was arrested in 1943, during the Second World War. The memoir, “If this is a Man”, written immediately after Levi’s release from the Auschwitz concentration camp, not only provides the readers with Levi’s personal testimony of his experience in Auschwitz, but also invites the readers to consider the implications of life in the concentration camp for our understanding of human identity. In Levi’s own words, the memoir was written to provide “documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind”. The lack of emotive words and the use of distant tone in Levi’s first person narration enable the readers to visualize the cold, harsh reality in Auschwitz without taking away the historical credibility. Levi’s use of poetic and literary devices such as listing, repetition, and symbolism in the removal of one’s personal identification; the use of rhetorical questions and the inclusion of foreign languages in the denial of basic human rights; the use of bestial metaphors and choice of vocabulary which directly compares the prisoner of Auschwitz to animals; and the use of extended metaphor and symbolism in the character Null Achtzehn all reveal the concept of dehumanization that was acted upon Jews and other minorities.
The holocaust is a horrible tragedy that occurred during World War two, when the Nazi’s persecuted the Jews throughout Europe. The poem ‘Refugee Blues’ and the extract ‘The Last Night’ are both about the recrimination and persecutions of Jewish people. They are both about facing cruelty and prejudice however the writers portray this in different ways. They both show us that the death of Jewish people is inevitable. In my essay I will show how persecution and suffering is conveyed.
In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Joe is the closet thing Pip has to a brother and father figure in his life. Because Pip’s parents passed when Pip was very young, Pip’s new parents are his strict, unmaternal mother and her husband, Joe, who was“brought up by hand” alongside Pip (8). Joe is described in the book as a “mild, good-natured, sweet tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow” with a “smooth face” and “eyes of such a very undecided blue” (8). Joe is seen more as a brother than a father to Pip because of his kind temperament and childlike attitude. Mrs. Joe is the least kind and forgiving person in the eyes of young Pip. Not only does Mrs. Joe beat and terrorize Pip, but she also beats her husband, Joe. This causes Mrs. Joe