Fear and desire: the two main reasons for suffering. If one senses and feels pleasure and pain, one can desire. Fear exists for the survival of one when one feels unsafe or in danger. Fear brings physical and emotional change to a human, like a change in behavior and change in metabolic and organ functions, because of a threat or danger. This causes one to flee or hide, physically or emotionally, from the event or situation. Desire comes from the thirst, burning, yearning, hankering, need, longing and craving of a certain object, person, or feeling. Although desire usually represents an unquenchable sexual desire, other desires exist, which can benefit or disadvantage the character. Desire can never cease and always possesses the impossibility …show more content…
When the hero/heroine finally learns that living purely by fear and desire cannot bring them to their “Holy Grail,” that controlling and facing their fears and desires removes the suffering in their life, when abstaining from too intense, degrading, non-meaningful desires and conquering their, mainly, emotional, internal, and psychological, fears so they may find their purpose, they may destroy their, metaphorical, Death Star, kill their dragons and demons, and earn their Holy Grail. By gaining this knowledge about removing the evil, detrimental fears and desires of the hero’s/heroine’s life, the hero/heroine reaches a critical stage in Campbell’s Monomyth: The Apotheosis stage. Prufrock fears opening up, rejection, his appearance and his inadequacy but desires a relationship with a lady, possibly his soulmate. Dorian desires youth, beauty and love by other but fears decay, old age, and death. It all starts in the amygdala: found within the temporal lobes of the brain and which deals with memory, decision-making, and emotional reactions; ultimately dealing with …show more content…
A hero/heroine must pass through many stages to reach their “Holy Grail,” all of which include fear and desire in one way or another. How they deal with their fears and desires depend on their archetypes. Archetypes, highly developed elements, as Carl Jung described, live in the collective unconsciousness. The characters, along their journey and especially during their Apotheosis stage, discover their true archetypes with full knowledge and acceptance of them. Also, discovering and accepting the person’s Shadow. The characters in The Waste Land possess an intense sexual desire and possibly deep down fear of dying with no real experiences. In the literary pieces The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, by T.S. Eliot, and The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot, the authors make use of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, and allow the characters to reach the Apotheosis stage, in order to demonstrate just what it takes to reach one’s “Holy Grail” and live freely, happily, and truly but also to show the degradation of a hero/heroine if fear and desire overcome, thus forcing them to live in their
The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worst attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point where they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous examples used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were.
Virtually all literature contain instinctive trends in the human consciousness to represent certain themes or motifs, these are defined as archetypes. Archetypes can be thought as blueprints or as bundles of psychic energy that influence the manner in which we understand and react to life. There are two different categories of archetypes, the plot archetype and the character archetype. The orphan, martyr, wanderer, warrior, magician, villain, wise child, temptress, rebel, underdog, fool, saint, virgin, wise, old man or woman are all considered to be character archetypes. Call to adventure, isolation, quest and monster that turns against its creator are all considered to be plot archetypes. The novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, contains archetypes.
Fear is a part of everyone’s life, but it is how it is handled that makes all the difference. In the story “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami, a tragedy consumes a young boy and stays with him for many years. As the story continues, the narrator eventually realizes that he has to face his fear in order to lead a normal life. In “The Seventh Man”, Murakami develops the theme that one should face his or her fear with the use of similes, imagery, and symbolism.
In every society, throughout all of time fear is present. It is a an evolutionary instinct thought to have kept us alive, throughout the darkest moments in human history. However as time has progressed fear has had an unintended consequences on society, including the suffusion of incomprehension. During the Salem Witch Trials and Cold War a large sense of fear overcame these societies causing tragedy and misinformation to become commonplace. It is in these societies that it is clear that fear is needed to continue a trend of ignorance. Although bias is thought to be essential to injustice, fear is crucial to the perpetuation of ignorance because it blinds reason, suppresses the truth and creates injustice.
In this case, Treena develops anxiety from an incident which normally would not elicit a fearful response. This process is called classical conditioning and occurs through paired association and the incident becomes a neutral stimulus. In this case, fear conditioning involves the pairing of a neutral stimulus with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). The neutral stimulus initially causes no emotional reaction, but after repeated pairings with the unconditioned stimulus, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus triggering the onset of unconditioned stimulus and inducing anxiety and panic (Lissek, Powers, McClure, Phelps, Wolderhawariat, Grillon, Pine, 2015). When symptoms of anxiety is paired with this kinds of uncued panic attacks,
In every culture, there are stories that get past down from generation to generation (Campbell 1). Tales of knights who slay dragons and princesses who kissed frogs are a part of every culture. All over the world, stories share comment characteristic. Joseph Campbell introduces a theory based on this idea called the monomyth, the idea that stories all share the same narrative pattern, in the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Overall, this theory shows the same narrative pattern in stories throughout the world, which symbolically reveals all humans must tackle difficulties and overcome them many times throughout life (5). Specifically, Campbell’s hero’s journey is comprised of six steps, which, collectively
Similar to a horror movie, James Lincoln Collier’s article “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name” suggests that a certain amount of fear and anxiety is beneficial. Collier mentions that “[t]he thought of graduate school wasn’t what depressed [him]. It was giving up on what deep in [his] gut [he] really wanted to do. Right then, [he] learned another lesson. To avoid that kind of depression meant, inevitably, having to endure a certain amount of worry and concern.” In order to pursue his dream, Collier realized that the fear would help him. He claims that “[t]he great Danish philosopher S¬øren Kierkegaard believed that anxiety always arises when we confront the possibility of our own development. It seems to be a rule of life that you can’t advance without getting that old, familiar, jittery feeling” (Collier). Like the fears and anxieties we face in the real world, such as “stage fright, butterflies in the stomach, a case of nerves—the feelings we have at a job interview, when we’re giving a big party, when we have to make an important presentation at the office” (Collier), the fears and anxieties we face from watching horror movies furnishes us with new experiences and new knowledge, albeit indirect. The new profound knowledge makes us for the better, helping us become well-aware of issues in the world around us. That is, horror movies educate us, teaching us to be virtuous and preventing us from committing heinous
A simple definition of the human psyche is the embodiment of the human spirit. However, when one takes a more in-depth look, it becomes much more complex than the tidy little package that the definition would infer. The psyche has a direct link to thoughts, emotions, reactions and consequences. Of these components, emotions have the most significant impact on the human essence. The way in which humans view and react to the world around them is directly linked to the conscious and subconscious feelings associated with a particular activating event. The human psyche is driven by a wide variety of emotions ranging from love, hate, anger, happiness, fear, and courage to name but only a few. Of these, fear has the power to disrupt the body and spirit in profound ways as it encompasses all emotions. Therefore, it is the strongest emotion associated with the human condition.
One of the most controversial topics of the century hinges on one simple question: What makes the world go round? Most will jump to say money. Some will argue in favor of their religion. Others will point out scientific facts. The truth is, none are correct. One emotion, one aspect of life shines above the others, extending its light on merely half of our beloved globe, leaving the other semi-circle to deal with pitch black: fear. To understand its impact, society’s definition of fear must be perceived. Fear is officially defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something dangerous will harm him/her. However, with his classic novel, Alan Paton shows that it extends far beyond that. An old man by the name of Stephen Kumalo leaves the comfort of his tribe in Ndotsheni, and embarks on a
Desire is seen as one of the main sources of suffering in Buddhism because it can create an attachment to certain things in life, whether they be people or inanimate objects, and this sets one up for more suffering. The bodhisattva’s father epitomizes desire in the Buddhacarita. He wishes for his son to eventually be the ruler of the earth rather than simply a religious leader. This base desire sets him up for suffering since upon his son’s rejection of the regal way of life he is disappointed in a way that would not be possible if he did not have desire in the first place. The king’s desires, and selfish ones at that, end up not going as planned since the bodhisattva eventually sees suffering and is determined to fix suffering in the world leading to his father trying to sorrowfully persuade the bodhisattva to stay while “shedding copious amounts of tears” (B. 5.40). This event clearly depicts how desire is able to directly lead to suffering; however, the king was not learned in the ways of Buddhism so he would have easily been manipulated by desires of the world, but desire is even able to corrupt those that are more learned in the teachings of Buddhism, even though it was an early form. Even the gods were upset when the Buddha neared the end of his life because they did not want to see him die.
Anxiety disorders are the 2nd most diagnosed mental illness in the United States. Anxiety comes from the “fight or flight” physiological response in ones body. The fear a person experiences is an intense emotional alarm accompanied by a surge of energy in the autonomic nervous system. The surge is what motivates us to flee from danger, cueing the “flight” response. However, some anxiety is good for us in moderate amounts. Most people perform better when we are a little anxious (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). Anxiety can improve test performance or make you more energetic and charming on a date. It improves, social, physical, and intellectual performance. In fact little would get done if we didn’t have any anxiety. However anxiety can be negative as well. The most common symptoms are looking worried and anxious or fidgeting. That is pretty normal for most people. These symptoms are a physiological response that starts in the brain. It elevates the heart rate and creates muscle tension. Most of the research has been done with animals. Animals seem to experience anxiety in a similar way to ...
The word “anagnorisis”, in its Greek context, means the recognition of both the hero and what they stood for. These scenes in a tragedy unravel a terrifying event or plot, while those in a comedy reconciles loved ones to reset the world in the story back to its righteous place. During the recognition stage, the protagonist gets an opportunity to decide their fate. Some characters already have control, others given control, and still others give up their control. As a result of their ultimate resolution, the reader or viewer feels a sense of either compassion or fear. Without this stage, the authors would not be able to reveal the character’s transition from ignorance to awareness of the real situation as well as their insight of the relationship
The emotional health and wellbeing for our children should be the greatest importance to a parent. Four million children and adolescents in the United States live with serious mental disorders (Hamburg, 2006). Some conditions include depression, anxiety disorders, which are the most frequent that may later on lead to drug abuse. Some develop eating disorders that include bulimia and anorexia, others develop attention deficits, become hyperactive or antisocial behavioral responses that may limit the ability to think and learn and form social attachments or communicate with others. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health disorders are one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Three of the ten leading causes of disability in people between the ages of 15 and 44 are mental disorders and the other cases are often associated with mental disorders and research has shown that most mental disorders begin in childhood and in adolescence (2009). Poor mental health can have an effect on wider health and development of adolescents in associations with social outcomes such as higher alcohol, tobacco and illicit substances, pregnancy, school dropout and even the act of wrong behaviors of a child.
In today’s society there is a high fear of crime by society. Society actions show that there is anxiety and fear about crime. Therefore, anxiety and fear about crime has placid our cities and communities. Society express fear of being victimized by crimes, criminal activities, and behaviors. Therefore, according to, (Crime, 1999) states that “ the level of fear that a person holds depends on many factors, including but, not limited to: “ gender, age, any past experiences with crime that a person may have, where one lives, and one’s ethnicity.” All of those factors have a huge impact on one’s fear level.
Suffering can be defined as an experience of discomfort suffered by a person during his life. The New York Times published an article entitled what suffering does, by David Brooks (2014). In this article, Brooks explains how suffering plays an important role in our pursuit of happiness. He explains firstly that happiness is found through experiences and then, suffering can also be a motivation in our pursuit of happiness. In other words, suffering is a fearful but necessary gift to acquire happiness. This paper is related to motivation and emotion, two keys words to the pursuit of happiness (King, 2010).