Living in a constant state of fear of the unknown is a miserable feeling. Imagine not knowing what horrible occurrence in your life would take place next. Three young adolescents experienced this state of paranoia and panic through their own personal situations like none other. These teenagers are slotted to be unwound which is basically the ultimate death. Therefore, fighting for the safety of their lives was a daily battle not stacked in their favor. The actions of the characters Connor, Risa, and Lev in Neal Shusterman’s novel Unwind depict how intense trepidation leads to impulsive decision-making. The tribulations Connor encounters during the opening of the novel influences his spontaneous choices. Upon rummaging through his dad’s office in search for a stapler, Conner discovers the horrifying news that his life was soon drawing to a close. No other piece of paper could have container a more horrific message. Connor immediately decides to take matters into his own hands. His main focus is to escape this tragedy and flee to safety as quickly as possible. As rapidly as his fear set in, Conner’s …show more content…
After being told she was no longer suitable to live at her state home, Risa was overcome with misery because her talents were no longer sufficient. Her life would soon be ending as well, or so she thought. While being transported to the place of her eternal death, Risa found herself in a terrible car accident causing chaos for miles. Quickly, Risa saw this as her opportunity to escape. The author states, “Risa fixes her eyes on the front door of the bus, holds her breath, and races toward that door.” (Shusterman 27) With no time to think or plan, Risa follows her first impulse and acts immediately. Whatever may happen once she crosses those doors provides an ounce of hope for her future in contrast to willingly be transported to the harvest
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.
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 Craig Lesley’s novel The Sky Fisherman, he illustrates the full desire of direction and the constant flow of life. A boy experiences a chain of life changing series of events that cause him to mature faster than a boy should. Death is an obstacle that can break down any man, a crucial role in the circle of life. It’s something that builds up your past and no direction for your future. No matter how hard life got, Culver fought through the pain and came out as a different person. Physical pain gives experience, emotional pain makes men.
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.
“The only way to end things completely was to hurt him enough that his fear was stronger than his hate (Page 211).” – Andrew “Ender” Wiggin. Fear and the power of fear are very delicate things. If someone has too much fear, it turns to anger. Not enough fear, and they have no respect. The book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is about fear, especially of the unknown, and the controlling power it has.
From death to drug use “The Ascent”, teaches a crucial moral lesson in how decisions affect more than one individual. In Ron Rash’s, “The Ascent”, he tells a story about a boy named Jared who has a rough life due to his parent’s decision making. While Jared is on Christmas break he begins to explore in the woods. As he was exploring he discovers a crashed plane that went missing recently. As the story continues Jared reveals little details, or inner thoughts that his young mind does not understand what is happening around him. Rash’s use of naïve narrator, critical foreshadowing, and imagery to create an effective setting that leads to a character revelation.
Introduction “This experience is much harder, and weirder, to describe than extreme fear or terror, most people know what it is like to be seriously afraid. If they haven’t felt it themselves, they’ve at least seen a movie, or read a book, or talked to a frightened friend – they can at least imagine it. But explaining what I’ve come to call ‘disorganization’ is a different challenge altogether. Consciousness gradually loses its coherence, one’s center gives away. The center cannot hold.
Despite the fact that we are not instantly aware of O’Connor’s indication of foreshadowing, we begin to see a pattern of this family’s inevitable rendezvous with
It comes to a point in life when fear controls you and causes harm to you and everyone else in your environment. History repeats itself when fear is involved. In the Salem Witch trials, fear caused people to accuse the innocent of being witches. After World War Two, Americans feared sabotage from Japanese and locked up all the Japanese even if they were innocent. After 9/11, fear caused people to believe all Muslims were evil and could harm you. Being afraid of something can eventually become dangerous to you. In some cases, fear becomes dangerous to other people around you like in Salem.
Fear is natural and does not need to be reinforced. Simply, fear is inevitable. Similarly, death is natural and inevitable, while also greatly feared. In “The Last Stop,” Brian expresses his dismay by saying, “I feared rejection or worse, an invitation to come and stay” (Cable 70). Brian fears the unknown that awaits him beyond the doors of the mortuary. Fear of the unknown is also exemplified in “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” by John T. Edge. John fears trying the pig lips that he has never had before. He says, “I stifle a gag that rolls from the back of my throat, swallow hard, and pray the urge to vomit passes” (Edge 77). This quote represents the disgust and uncertainty John feels as he eats the pig lip. Comparably, in “The Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison.” by Amanda Coyne, uncertainty is expressed by her nephew, Toby, asking, “Is my Mommy a bad guy?” (Coyne 93). This quote represents the unease felt by Toby who does not yet comprehend why his mother is in prison. By asking this question he searches for comfort from the fear of uncertainty. Brian, John, and Toby all search for comfort from their fear, despite how different they all may
For those who dare take such a risk, they could be met with, “an eternal boon of privacy” or the, “silver reaches of the estuary”, possibly signifying a silver lining at the end of the tunnel. With two contrasting outcomes to a singular situation, the author, Avison, continually pushes the fact that these risks are dangerous, which is exactly only why, “one or two have won” this so called game of a whirlpool. Avision also adds that when a risk-taker becomes defeated by the whirlpool, they, “turn away from their defeat” and most likely become the people who sit, “on the rim of suction” afraid to make another mistake or face the consequences of another uncalculated or miscalculated risk. The, “despair” that people feel as a result of a failure is simply a consequence of enduring the whirlpool, with the “death” described signifying the death of their wonder at what is past the whirlpool in the silver estuary. The second stanza serves to Avison as a continuation of first stanza ideals, with the addition of consequences or benefits of the
Life is full of surprises, you never know when something bad is going to happen. In the short story “Catch” by Sarah Ellis, Rita experiences this problem. At first Rita is a happy girl who just got her driver’s license, but when her Aunt Darlene gets distracted by an old man, she begins to show the behaviors of a typical moody teenager; acting upset, selfish and angry. Rita is a dynamic character showing characteristics including; quick-tempered, devoted and impatient. Despite this, after a terrifying experience, she changes her worldview and way of thinking.
Ken Kesey was an American novelist who many consider a link between the 1950s Beat generation and the counterculture of the 1960s. After attending Stanford University, Kesey served as an experimental subject and aide in a hospital where he was introduced to psychedelic drugs. As an author he is known for his literary themes of rebellion against societal oppression and his use of personal experiences with psychotropic and hallucinogenic drugs. These experiences validate his status as a preeminent spokesperson for the counterculture. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey helps to develop a deeper in the meaning in the novel by using motifs such as laughter, fear, and the fog to represent the struggle for freedom for the mentally impaired in society during this time.
As American satirist Henry Louis Mencken once wrote, “The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear--fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” Mencken’s skeptical view on fear can be influenced by the fact that individuals lose a sense of logic when fear is present. Fear, an unpleasant feeling, is caused in order to avoid the consequences of a situation because one is afraid; therefore, fear often takes control of one’s mind as individuals choose to be fearful rather than realizing logical knowledge can change the outcome of a situation. This ideology is illustrated throughout the events in The Crucible as playwright Arthur Miller suggests through contrasting characters that
Death it is something we all must face at one point in our lives or another. It is either a death of a loved one, friend or co-worker. Sometimes it’s the devastation from a natural disaster. No matter what makes us face the idea of death it is how we handle this realization that truly matters. When Gilgamesh is faced with the horrendous loss of his dear friend and comrade Enkidu he begins to fear death. In Gilgamesh’s youth he is proud without fear of death, it is not until he watches his friend die that his own mortality becomes a fear.