John Grisham

809 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: 'contemporary interest in Grisham novels

John Grisham’s Appeal to Contemporary Viewers

The success behind the Grisham’s novels has come from the author’s ability to focus the suspense and drama around the character, rather than the cases the character is involved in. When one looks back into time at the novels and TV shows about law, the authors tended to focus on the cases rather on the drama surrounding the event that took place. In John Grisham’s book The Firm, he turns the focus of the audience away from the actual case(s) and instead focuses on the life of the lawyer (Mitch McDeere). This allows Grisham to add drama, suspense and anything else that would help support the plot. If Grisham decided only to write about the technical aspects of law surrounding a case, then his following of viewers would probably be much smaller then it is today. Matt Zoller Seitz, an author who wrote an essay that reaffirms this point, by claiming that the contemporary viewers are attracted to Grisham’s work because of his real life like stories surrounding the main characters, like the lawyer, Mitch McDeere, in The Firm.
John Grisham’s leading character in this novel is Mitch McDeere, he is the center of the plot. Grisham uses supporting characters such as Mitch’s wife, and other partners in the law firm, that brings life to Mitch McDeere. Grisham creates conflict between these characters and Mitch to form the drama of the plot and find a resolution to the problems that...

Show More
Related

  • Review of Descartes: An Intellectual Biography and Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    To read Damasio's critique alongside Stephen Gaukroger's remarkably rich intellectual biography of Descartes, however, is to realize that Damasio could just as aptly have titled his book "Descartes' Vision." As Gaukroger points out, Descartes was reviled during his lifetime and for a century after his death not for his dualism but for his materialism. Only when the history of philosophy was rewritten in the nineteenth century as the story of epistemology did Descartes come to bear the double designation of being both the "father" of modern philosophy and the ranking nativist who visited upon us the catastrophic separation of mind from body and of reason from emotion. These labels are essentially caricatures that distort the actual complexity of what Descartes struggled to work out in his cognitive theory. Gaukroger reconstructs this struggle for us, sometimes on a month-by-month basis, showing how Descartes shuttled back and forth between an account of the body and the pursuit of the mind.

    Read More

  • Courtroom 302 by Steve Bogira

    1513 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...many pros and cons that go along with the novel written by Steve Bogira. Some pros that go along with Bogira’s novel is that he does a good job capturing the history of the courthouse and how it’s been brought up from its early beginnings. Bogira also does a good job with following and going though Judge Locallo’s daily routine and problems that he faces as being a judge in one of America’s busiest felony courtrooms Though Bogira’s novel is a thorough detailed account of what happens in a year in one of America’s most hectic courtrooms, it can be seen as only a representation of the court system in Chicago since courtrooms across the country can differ from state government to state government. Bogira’s novel though, however, does give an accurate description of the problems that can still continue today, plaguing the court system within this country. Corruption is

    Read More

  • Kurt Vonnegut - The Man and His Work

    5175 Words  | 11 Pages

    One of the best, most valuable aspects of reading multiple works by the same author is getting to know the author as a person. People don't identify with Gregor Samsa; they identify with Kafka. Witness the love exhibited by the many fans of Hemingway, a love for both the texts and the drama of the man. It's like that for me with Kurt Vonnegut, but it strikes me that he pulls it off in an entirely different way.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Meditations By Rene Descartes

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conjunction with this theory, any matter is known through the mind. This reasoning was used as a basis toward the dualism of the mind and body. The mind is a thinking entity. It has the ability to imagine, dream, and ultimately encompass the aspects that are not fundamentally matter. The body exists outside the mind. It is the connection to the external world based on the scientific properties of mass, size, shape, and motion. Descartes argues that the mind is distinct from the body. The mind thinks and does not have scientific properties. One’s body is a non-thinking thing. This distinction leads Descartes to conclude that the mind is not the same as the body. There is no characteristic that is categorized as both mind and body; the body can be changed, the mind cannot. In continuation, the mind can exist without the body and the body can exist without the mind since each thing is distinct. Descartes later explains how the brain is not the same as the mind. The brain is the connection between the mind and body in a human being. Descartes argues that matter cannot be the same as anything mental. The mind is affected by the brain, providing one with insight into the external world. Also, the mind can influence the brain, hence one’s body being controlled by the mind. However, it is possible for the brain to cease functionally and the mind to still operate. Essentially, one can conclude that the

    Read More

  • Kurt Vonnegut

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11, 1922. After attending Cornell University from 1941-43 Vonnegut served in World War II and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge. As a prisoner of war, he survived the fire bombing of Dresden by Allied forces on 13 February, 1945 in an underground meat-storage cellar. When he emerged the next morning, Vonnegut was put to work pulling corpses from the ruins of the desolated city once known as "the Venice of the North." In one night the horrific fire-bombing of Dresden killed more people than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, more than 135,000 in all. Vonnegut's first-hand experiences of this, one of the darkest episodes in human history, would later provide the basis for his most influential work, Slaughterhouse Five (1969), though it would take him more than twenty years to come to terms with his wartime experiences and complete the novel.

    Read More

  • Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

    547 Words  | 2 Pages

    Morrie helped Mitch discover who he truly is, and gives views on culture and the pressures of fitting into society’s uniform mold.

    Read More

  • The Distinction Between Mind and Body

    2176 Words  | 5 Pages

    In arguing for the distinction between mind and body, Descartes seeks to show that the two are independent substances and can exist separately. It will be useful to outline Descartes’ argument based on clear and distinct perception by listing his premises and conclusion. The essay will then analyse each premise in turn, arguing that the argument fails because his premises are faulty. The argument, found in the Sixth Meditation, runs as follows

    Read More

  • Analyzing Individuation and Identity In Descartes´ Philosophical View of the Mind-Body Dualism

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every since Plato introduced the idea of dualism thousands of years ago meta-physicians have been faced with the mind-body problem. Even so Plato idea of dualism did not become a major issue of debate in the philosophical world until the seventeenth century when French philosopher Rene Descartes publicized his ideas concerning the mental and physical world. During this paper, I will analyze the issue of individuation and identity in Descartes’ philosophical view of the mind-body dualism. I will first start by explaining the structure of Cartesian dualism. I will also analyze the challenges of individuation and identity as they interact with Descartes. With a bit of luck, subsequently breaking down Descartes’ reasoning and later on offering my response, I can present wit a high degree of confidence that the problems of individuation and identity offer a hindrance to the Cartesians’ principle of mind-body dualism. I give a critical analysis of these two problems, I will first explain the basis of Descartes’ philosophical views.

    Read More

  • Discourse Community Analysis

    1891 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although the legal profession is a single discourse community, it is made up of many smaller discourse communities. This is so because while all lawyers share the same broad goals of the legal profession and have a general knowledge and expertise in all areas of the law, most lawyers after graduating from law school and passing the bar exam specialize in a particular area of law. This specialization requires the lawyer to go beyond the broad concepts of law as a whole and to become knowledgeable and proficient in the sometimes minute details of a more specific area of law. Even then, some lawyers will go even further to focus on one aspect or another of that particular area of law. This results in most lawyers being members of many even smal...

    Read More

  • Descartes Conceivability Argument Analysis

    1476 Words  | 3 Pages

    Outline and assess Descartes' arguments for the conclusion that mind and body are distinct substances.

    Read More

  • Dilemma: A Life in Coma

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    The mind which is a non-extended thing, thinking is very different from the body which is a non-thinking thing, an extended and therefore Descartes argues that it is possible for the body to function without the mind and the mind to function without the body (Sorabji, 72). In Descartes theory of mind-body dualism, there exist several theories. Descartes describes the real distinction as the distinction between two things or substances. A substance is something that does not require any other creature to exist since it can occur with God’s concurrence only. Mode, on the other hand, is the affection towards a particular substance. Descartes argues that there are two payoffs for arguing that the mind and body can exist without each other. This includes the religious motivation and provides hope for the immortality of the soul and the second one is the scientific motivation that paves way for the new version of Descartes mechanistic

    Read More

  • Descartes Mind Body Problem Essay

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    What is the mind-body problem? The mind-body problem is the main question of trying to distinguish between the qualities of the mental and physical (Schulz & Schulz, 2016). Many scholars seemed to always argue about the mind and body as to whether they were separate or essentially the same thing. Descartes decided to tackle this question head on and he came up with some interesting answers to

    Read More

  • The True Intentions of the Lawyer in “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

    653 Words  | 2 Pages

    Who is the lawyer you may ask? What kind of person is the lawyer throughout the story? The lawyer doesn’t mention anything about himself except the fact of his job and age. He doesn’t even give his name nor the name of anyone in the story. Through the words that he speaks, the lawyer is a person who like to have structure. The enactment of dealing with people on a personal base is to much of a confrontation for lawyer. Through the ordeal of his interaction with each of his scriveners we learn that the lawyer plays it safe.

    Read More

  • Descartes: The Nature Of The Mind And Body

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    From this place of doubt, Descartes comes to the conclusion that he has no senses, and that body, shape, extension, movement and place are fabrications. This philosophy leaves one wondering if they too do not exist whilst being surrounded by things that seem not to. Descartes approaches this wonder with the fact that the mere perception of one’s own existence in turn proves the existence of their mind. Following this idea, one can conclude that the only aspect of ourselves which definitely exists, is our mind. In a society where the physical body is what determines existence and being, one begins the wonder what they are. This wonder led Descartes to the idea of the mind and the body and how they coexist. He determines that the body is defined as a physical thing and the mind is defined as a thinking thing. Taking into account the previous meditation on senses and dreaming, Descartes determines that the body is almost irrelevant when it comes to observing reality because it is purely based off of senses. Thus, leaving thinking as the only thing inseparable from himself and therefore the only thing determining existence. “Were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist.” (Descartes, 18). This philosophy leads Descartes to the conclusion that one is only a thinking thing, which is defined as a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions. The idea that we are just thinking things completely disproves the thought that we can only exist in reality. Descartes says: “My mind enjoys wandering off and will not yet submit to being restrained within the bounds of truth.” (Descartes, 20). If our thoughts and therefore existence can

    Read More

  • Cartesian Dualism Analysis

    930 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rene Descartes wrote an intriguing text, titled, The Discourse of the Method. Descartes main focus was idea of Cartesian Dualism. This philosophy is based on the notion that there are two kinds of opposing foundations, the mind, res cogitio and the physical body, res extensa. The mind is defined as a mental phenomena and non-physical entity that contains mental properties such as experience and memories. The body is outlined as having physical properties such as weight and size, and operates like a machine. The body and mind cannot be considered to be made up of the same substance because of their differences. The distinction of the mind and body is founded on their diverse natures and is the root of the mind-body problem, leaving the question about how these two substances interact. That is, he sees mind and body as two very distinct things. His physics explains the workings of bodily substances, that is, substances whose essence is extension. Mind, on the other hand is not extended. It is a substance whose essence is thought. Keeping this theory in mind, the same philosophy can be related to humans and animals. The mind and body dualism can be synonymous with the difference between the human and animal properties.

    Read More

More about John Grisham

Open Document