Inevitable Grief in Not Yet, Jayette
In the short story "Not Yet, Jayette" by William Boyd, Charlie, the narrator and main character, describes a day in his life, and tries to understand, what is going on with him, and where and when his life took a turn towards misery. He states: "It seems to me that everybody in their life is at least two people. Once when you're a child, and once when you're an adult. It's the saddest thing." We will now try to see how this statement relates to his life, and whether or not this phenomenon can be said to be symptomatic for our culture.
Charlie, the main character of the short story, spends his life in Los Angeles, mostly looking for famous people. He used to be a star himself, when he was a child, but this came to an end as soon as he reached puberty. Now he is trying to recover the glamour of his childhood, but it is infinitely lost to him. This leads him to the reflection mentioned above.
I would argue, however, that he himself is not really changed. As a character, he appears never to have fully grown up. What has changed, is the attitude of the world towards him. His society, Hollywood, in the middle of the California of the American Dream, estimates youth above all, and maintains a "childish" attitude towards things. He himself, however, is excluded from the people he dreams of being with. He lives in a world of disillusionment, the wrong side of Hollywood, together with all those who have never succeeded. But he has somehow conserved a certain hopeful candour, which makes us pity him, as we know he should have no hope. This has however prevented him from sinking into the total despair of e.g. Vanessa, the woman he calls "aunt" . He keeps on dreaming about being famous, rich and young, and he views his own existence as a kid as something close to Paradise.
As I have already mentioned, he does not cope with existence like an adult. He is not able to keep his work, his family has been broken to pieces, and yet, all he does is looking for the rich and famous, and dreaming about the return of his career. He is secretly proud that Jayette, the woman in the coffee-shop, has noticed him.
As a young man, Jay Gatsby was poor with nothing but his love for Daisy. He had attempted to woe her, but a stronger attraction to money led her to marry another man. This did not stop Gatsby’s goal of winning this woman for himself though, and he decided to improve his life anyway he could until he could measure up to Daisy’s standards. He eventually gained connections in what would seem to be the wrong places, but these gave him the opportunity he needed to "get rich quick." Gatsby’s enormous desire for Daisy controlled his life to the point that he did not even question the immorality of the dealings that he involved himself in to acquire wealth. Eventually though, he was able to afford a "castle" in a location where he could pursue Daisy effectively. His life ambition had successfully moved him to the top of the "new money" class of society, but he lacked the education of how to promote his wealth properly. Despite the way that Gatsby flaunted his money, he did catch Daisy’s attention. A chaotic affair followed for a while until Daisy was overcome by pressures from Gatsby to leave her husband and by the realization that she belonged to "old money" and a more proper society.
A character can change many times throughout a novel, or film, whether it’s good or bad. It can be a character’s willingness to change or it can be a life changing journey he or she went on that made it happen. The novel, A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines, talks about characters such as Grant, Jefferson, and Paul along with the life changing journey they went through in their life in Bayonne, Louisiana. In the novel, Grant said, “we are […] all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood, until we […] decide to become something else” (Gaines 193). Grant’s change of mind set, Jefferson’s ability to stand up for himself, and Paul wanting to be a part of the change, shows how they went from a drifting piece of wood to something
Rodion Raskolnikov is a murderer, a damning criminal. Yet, he also has a warm heart that no one can equal. This character of paradox, of contradictions, of irony, is the true Raskolnikov. He is the Jekyll, and he is the Hyde; the zenith and the nadir. This hallowed literature of human nature provides us with important moral lessons, and at the same time helps the reader understand Dostoevsky’s philosophy on society better. Raskolnikov is not entirely a cold-blooded murderer, since he still has a feeling of love: The love towards Sofya Marmeladov. In this paper, we will go in-depth of how Sofya has an impact on Raskolnikov, by discussing their similarities and differences.
... himself in the service of others. Though Raskolnikov initially holds the belief that he is a higher being among others, his sense of regret and internal conflict after the murder shows otherwise. If Raskolnikov truly embodied the ubermensch as he envisioned himself to, he would show no sign of sorrow for bringing “happiness” to the rest of society, as well as providing justice for all the people Alyona Ivanovna has scammed. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s sense of emotional and physiological regret works against him, and helps portray to readers his false sense of justice and self image. By using murder as a key event, Dostoevsky gives readers an opportunity to understand the protagonists’ logic and justification for killing, how the character would react in such extreme situations, and how those reactions reflect his view toward society and his own beliefs.
her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders, and
This essay examines the social, philosophical, and psychological elements that had affected the Russian Society as well as the world of Dostoevsky’s novel “ Crime and Punishment ˮ. This essay demonstrates the wild impact and clashes left by these theories on the life, choices, and mentality of the novel and the characters embodied, the most important of which is the character of Raskolnikov. Highlighting an “in-depth exploration of the psychology of a criminal, the inner world of Raskolnikov, with its doubt, fear, anxiety and despair in escaping punishment and mental tortureˮ.
Raskolnikov commits his initial crime out of arrogance. "The old hag is nothing.... I killed not a human being," he says. (245) Raskolnikov feels that he has justification for killing the pawn broker. He thinks that the woman has no reason to live. He believes that the woman is less than a human, and that he is a superior being. Raskolnikov thinks that he has a right to kill.
...k he’s rich and he’s happy because he can have everything he ever wanted was perception. (15-16). But the reality he put a bullet to his head maybe from depression or unhappiness, but it shows this perception and imagination we build on someone and then BAM! People wake up to see the real world and it’s not all they thought it would be.
matures and becomes a better person, facts from the book show just the opposite. Henry
Often times in literature, we are presented with quintessential characters that are all placed into the conventional categories of either good or bad. In these pieces, we are usually able to differentiate the characters and discover their true intentions from reading only a few chapters. However, in some remarkable pieces of work, authors create characters that are so realistic and so complex that we are unable to distinguish them as purely good or evil. In the novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky develops the morally ambiguous characters of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov to provide us with an interesting read and to give us a chance to evaluate each character.
He has an idea to be rich, and he wants it fast. Being nine year old, he starts out looking for jobs in his neighborhood. After doing two jobs, he earns a nickel, a quarter and two peaches. He has money, and he can do whatever he wants. So with a friend and his sister, they go swimming. Money, to him at this age, affects him greatly already. From his own family, he learns that without money, they'll always be poor and working class. He has the need to be higher in social class and he wants to be like rich people.
There were many issues and concepts that were arisen with this film. What seemed to be the major theme that predominated throughout the film was that being older does not mean that life ends. There are different issues that are dealt with when aging, but that does not necessarily entitle growing and transforming have ended. Each character in the film were dealing with a variety of changes, some which dealt with the aging process and some that can happen at any time in ones life (Hoffman, 2012).
In Antigone, Creon becomes king of Thebes after Polynices and Eteocles commit fratricide in battle. Antigone commits her ‘crime of reverence(74)' by burying Polynices after a direct order from Creon dictating that everyone leave him on the ground, unburied. Creon first accuses the council of elders of being stupid and old (281) when they suggest that the gods were behind Polynices' burial. After this, he goes on a tirade against men who supposedly were not happy with his leadership and therefore paid off the watchmen to bury the body. Creon blames the watchman of burying the body for money and the watchman tells him that, "It's terrible when false judgment guides the judge (323)."
In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskalnikov undergoes a period of extreme psychological upheaval. By comparing this death and rebirth of Raskalnikov's psyche to the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, Dostoevsky emphasizes not only the gravity of his crimes, but also the importance of acceptance of guilt.
After inferring from the rationality of Raskolnikov’s hypothesis on illness that the rest of his working theory would too be correct, the reader is led down a path of definite expectations for his/her “extraordinary” narrator. This path would have been one whereby Raskolnikov was able to implement widespread well being as a result of his murders. Furthermore, he would have been able to avoid submission to the common law of the “ordinary” people in order to preserve his greatness.