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Mental illness and oppression in literature
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Recommended: Mental illness and oppression in literature
Mitchell Stephens plays on our emotions in so many different ways in this novel. At first Stephens comes in almost like a hero, trying to find justice for these hurting people in the small town of. Stephens causes our perspective to change with his statement that “ there are no accidents. I don’t even know what the word means, and I never trust anyone who says he does.” “Someone must be to blame.”
After seeing through his eyes how he was planning on using the pain and hurt from some of the people to try and win his case, he no longer seems like such a hero, but not quite the villain. “But anytime I hear about a case like that school bus disaster up there, I turn into a heat-seeking missal, homing in on a target that I know in my bones is
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Rather then getting help and support to deal with the depression and the pain from watching his daughter slowly kill herself he is stuck in a cycle of anger and defeatism. Anger can be insidious, and it motivates. Stephens is using anger as a way of passing psychic pain on to others I, making others also pay for his emotional deficits. Stephens is very aware of this but chooses to keep taking these cases. “ So I am no Lone Ranger riding into town in my white Mercedes-Benz to save the local sheepherders from the cattle barons in black hats. I am clear on that. Moreover, I do not burn myself out with these awful cases because it somehow makes me a better person. No, I admit it, I’m, on a personal vendetta; what the hell, it is obvious. And I don’t need a shrink to tell me what motivates me.”
At the end of the story, Stephens receives a call that is a call he hoped he would never have received. His Zoe has AIDs, and there is nothing he can do to make this better. Stephens talks Zoe into coming to his home to talk, and give her more money, but he has the hopes that she will stay and let her daddy care for her while he still can. Whether Zoe stays, or not this disorder Stephens suffers from will not go away without getting help for himself. He will keep living within the same vicious cycle of being the victim of his own game unless he chooses to break
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
In the film, American Psycho, Patrick Bateman was a wealthy investment banker who also happened to be a serial killer. He was highly intelligent and was charming which attracted many of the women who came his way. Unlike most people in the world, he lived in constant pain. He was rarely happy with himself, and also hated everyone around him. He felt that he needed to inflict his pain on others in violent ways. He always had something disgusting to say such as, “I like to dissect girls; I am utterly insane.” It is outside of the norm to speak in this way, therefore he would be considered deviant. He displayed feelings of distress as he became frustrated very easily with himself and others. Everything
As a child you do many things that are horrible but you do them because you either do not care or do not know the consequences to their actions. Percy was a teen who lived in Bend, Oregon and he was happy to live there. He started to see people from California, Seattle, and Portland come to his town which he felt they were invading his territory. Percy and his friends would do many bad things to the rich people because they hated them and wanted them out. Bend was a place where there was a lot of empty land usually grass field. “ When I go back to Bend now, I don't recognize it. I get lost driving around. There are roads where there were none before. There are roundabouts where there were once intersections. Acres of sagebrush have given way to big box stores”. Percy left Oregon for a long time, but when he came back he saw something he had never expected to occur. As he drove around Percy got lost because this was a new...
Young journalists can learn a lot from Malcom’s book because it presents some troubling issues. A main issue would be the author-subject relationship and where the writer-friend line exist. The Journalist and the Murderer tells the story of Joe McGinnis and Jeffrey MacDonald. McGinnis is an author looking to write a book on MacDonald who is convicted of murdering his wife and two daughters. MacDonald wanted his voice to be heard, and he wanted to get his side of the story out to the world.
Young black boy, Jefferson, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was in a bar with two friends when they murdered the white bartender. Jefferson was unfairly convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair by a white judge and jury. His defense lawyer, in an attempt to avoid the death sentence, labeled him a "hog”. It was this label that Jefferson's godmother wants disproved. She enlisted the help of a school teacher, Grant Wiggins, who at first wasn’t too kind for the idea of helping a crook. Grant agrees to talk with Jefferson only out of a sense of duty. Due to all the humiliation at the hands of the white sheriff, Jefferson's lack of cooperation, and his own sense of unsure faith, Grant forges a bond with Jefferson that leads to wisdom and courage for both. At first, Jefferson saw himself as a hog, and nothing but a hog.
Throughout the book To Kill A Mockingbird Lee discusses the effects of ignorance and the toll it takes on people such as Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Scout herself, and many more. Through her examples of sexism, prejudice, and racism, from the populist of poverty stricken Southerners, she shows the readers the injustice of many. The victims of ignorance are the ‘mockingbirds’ of the story. A good example of this injustice is the trial of Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white girl and is found guilty. The book is from the point of view Scout, a child, who has an advantage over most kids due to her having a lawyer as a dad, to see the other side of the story. Her father tells her in the story, “you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” (Lee 200).
In Nancy Barr’s Page One: Hit and Run, the reader is taken through an investigation of a local man’s death by fictional character Robin Hamilton. Robin Hamilton is a reporter who moved back to her hometown of Escanaba, Michigan after her fiancés death in Chicago. Once settled back in Robin begins working at the local newspaper station, and is soon covering the biggest story to hit the small town of Escanaba. After Frank Thompson, a very generous and well respected man, is killed in a hit and run while on his daily morning routine the little town is shaken. The whole town was confused to as why someone would want to kill Frank Thompson, and it was ruled an accident until a good friend of Robins asks her to use her investigative skills to clear her son’s name after he was framed. Hannah
The hero in this film was Dr. Constance Peterson. She was not ruthless and greedy and neither was the assumed criminal. Dr. Peterson was disillusioned because of her love for John Ballantine, but it destructed her sight of logic not her sight to see that John was a criminal. She was but wasn’t alienated from society. The society that she knows is the people she works with, but since she works in a mental asylum she is alienated from “normal” society. Dr. Peterson works against the police only to find out what actually happened to the real Dr. Edwards, but she is not a suspect to the crime. Personally, I wouldn’t call her psychologically wounded or morally ambiguous, just hard headed.
The second half of the book follows Mr. Bragg's developing career and family. Mr. Bragg covered various events like the Miami riots, the Haitian atrocities, and the Susan Smith case among others for his job.
However, Matt Fowler had different reasoning for his actions. After burying his twenty-one year-old son who was just on the cusp of graduating college, he finds that Strout, his son’s murderer, has been released on bail pending trial and until then he has resumed his normal life. Watching his wife not only mourning the loss of their son, but also having to see the killer in daily activities, has caused a mental and emotional strain on their life. The affect on Fowler’s family that Strout is walking around free and seemingly unconcerned is one of the main reasoning that is posed when Fowler and his friend Willis T...
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
Bigger Thomas feels trapped long before he is incarcerated for killing Mary Dalton. He is trapped in an overpriced apartment with his family and trapped in a white world he has no hope of changing. He knows that he is predisposed to receiving unfair treatment because he is black, but he still always feels as though he is headed for an unpleasant end. The three sections that make up the novel Native Son by Richard Wright, “Fear,” “Flight” and “Fate,” imply a continuous and pervasive cycle throughout Bigger’s life that ultimately leads him to murder.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee highlights the concept of victors and victims within a prejudiced community, displayed by the author through various aspects. These include characterization, setting, and literary devices. They aid in presenting the prejudice that takes place within the fictional town of Maycomb, revealing it to be based on social status. These elements assist the reader to construct a detailed picture of the town of Maycomb, and the atrocious deeds committed within.
Michael Henchard’s constant exercise of jealousy, pride, immature actions and overwhelming emotions bring him to his tragic end. Although Henchard might have you think he is a victim, the reader can see that his personality leads to the conclusion of his downfall and that Henchard’s inability to learn from his first mistakes takes him down a path no one wants to face. He might have been able to survive his mistakes had he not been so self-destructive. But because of the combination of his personality traits and the complexity of his character’s mind, he is eventually led to the nothingness that engulfs him.
In Conclusion, Lulu’s revenge, John Paul’s guilt, and Denny’s lust represents monstrous behavior. This story shows us that all humans are capable of monstrous behavior. Robert Cormier shares the perspective of a killer. Its take us on a journey through the characters’ eyes and shows us that even the innocent can be dangerous and how one event can negatively impact a person’s life.