Carly Scott
Mrs. Piersol
English 175
16 May 2014
Pondering Humanity
Humans live constantly in flux between vulnerability and invincibility. The change in the state of being is so fluid that it has blurred together into the medium of the human experience. The fact that the feeling self-consciousness is what develops the character of people has become lost on the masses. However, Michael Chabon’s “The Lost World”, uncovers this deeply buried secret. “The Lost World” directly supports the fact that vulnerability is the key to the human condition and a more perfect life. Life is about tradeoffs- with all disappointments come surprise and with all joys come disappointments.
Chabon’s “The Lost World” follows teenager Nathan Shapiro in what is, more than anything, a coming of age story. At the age of sixteen, Nathan (and friends) become drunk and go out for a drive around their quaint suburbia. Eventually ending up at the house of the “easy” Chaya Feldman, he is persuaded to go up to her room, buck naked. Once there, she gives him a letter, which he, through various unfortunate circumstances will not read for several months. Upon reading this letter, Nathan has a revelation about life and the human condition.
However, the most important aspects of this story that will be explored in more detail are as follows. First and foremost, Nathan’s intoxication and nudity is perhaps most important. Secondly it is important to note that his parents are divorced, and his father has a new child on the way. Nathan Shapiro also believes himself to be completely in love with Chaya Feldman after their counter. Last, but certainly not least, Nathan is looking for an excuse to feel angry and nostalgic.
To begin with, it is important to have a somewhat...
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...hat humans take for granted.
Vulnerability is found is the incessant hope of humans for a better world. The key to the human condition is the desperation for all problems to be resolved. Nathan embodies that perfectly. A teenager, coming of age, in an ever changing world, Nathan’s confusion leaves him raw to the influence of a brutal world. He is unknowingly in the perpetual flux of the human condition. The tradeoffs of life leave humans in anticipation for the next disappointment, as we wired negatively. The inability of people to feel their own worth is the biggest key to their insecurity, yet the ability of people to feel loved is the key to their invincibility. Nathan exemplifies both of these traits through his development in “The Lost World.” Everyone experiences the state of vulnerability like Nathan Shapiro, the teenager trying to find his invincibility.
In life there are times when things go wrong and you are out of fortune. The only way to evaluate your self-identity and character is to get back up on your feet and turn your problems around. In this memoir, A Place to Stand, Jimmy Santiago Baca (2001), demonstrates his adversities throughout his life. Baca’s parent was a big influence in process of creating his own identity. He encounters many obstacles as well as meeting a wide range of different people in society in positive and negative ways. At times in his life, he feels, the world is his worst antagonist. However, Jimmy has overcome the challenges he faces. Baca experiences challenges and difficulties during his youth and prison; However, he managed to overcome
George Bernard Shaw has said that “a happy family is but an earlier heaven “and though this may be true it is reasonable for one to question whether being alone is better than staying with people that love you and accept you for you who you are. In the play Afterimage, adapted by Canadian author Robert Chafe, originally written by Michael Crummey, it exhibits the significance of being able to fit into a society rather than being isolated and all alone. The play makes an effort at answering the question that surrounds the strength of family affiliations and its ability to carry on with the influences of societies affecting it. Through the use of tropology and character, the strength of relationships within families, and how it is on top of everything else is shown from start to finish in the play.
Group think and peer pressure caused Nathan to put his sexual health and wellness on risk. Nathan was committing these crimes in the late 70’s just when aids and cracks were beginning to explode in the black community. He should consider himself lucky to not have contracted aids during all of his sexual escapades. In Chapter 6 Nathan goes into great details about the women that were raped and where it happened. Nathan however give no mention to the use of a condom. This is appalling to me. I do not understand how 30 men can climax in the same women continuously without a condom. Removing the moral, emotion, and criminal implications attached to gang rape; it is still completely nasty and unsafe for the victim and the rapist. This practice was especially risky in African American communities where STD prevalence is very high. With each sexual encounter, Nathan and his friends face a greater chance of encountering an infected partner. According to the CDC in the year 2000 the rate of chlamydia among black women was over six times more than the rate among white women and the rate among black men was 8 times more than white men. The reason for this is behaviors like gang rape and the sexual conquest theories are taught to the youth
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From this, we can conclude that Zach’s character was a rapidly changing and very confusing mess. Zach’s relationship with Cammie's was also a rapidly changing and very confusing mess. Yet these two things, once studied, brought the readers to some very important ideas - such as themes about love, and
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Nathan views education as not only unnecessary, but potentially wasteful and dangerous: “Sending a girl to college is like pouring water in your shoes…It’s hard to say which is worse, seeing it run out and waste the water, or seeing it hold in and wreck the shoes” (56). Nathan believes that knowledge will either wreck his daughters, as they might be able to think for themselves, or will simply run out of them because they are too weak to retain their learning. He sees the women in his family as “dull-witted, bovine females” who are pliable to his needs (73). Adrienne Rich refers to this as a part of the “Great Silence” in which men “withhold from (women) large areas of the society’s knowledge and cultural attainments” (Rich 290). Rachel knows she is a victim of this circumstance, “telling him off good in the bathroom mirror,” while proclaiming “I’ll show you whose mind is a blank slate!” (426). However, because she is subservient to her father, Rachel refuses to declare this sentiment to his
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.
Nathan was poor man but quite intelligent and he respect his own quiet nature. According to the narrator, was a main character describe as "striking figure" but also later describe as called "Ruin of a man." These words symbolize two major characteristics that becomes disagreeing in Nathan's facts or conditions. Ethan Frome's characteristics presents the socials and morals decisions that we make in a boring way has results according rules of life.
Although the book has many stories to tell, all with something in common but yet with a different feature, the point of the book was to not only educate the world about these situations but to also give us real scenarios that we all can relate to in some sort of fashion. This book is about the human mind and the abstractness of our visions and memories. Everything affects us physically and mentally. We all share a common feature; we are all simply human with simple human minds.
"In "Lost in the Land of Oz", Madonna Kolbenschlag explores the way old societal myths, which are created from the metaphors in our life, are no longer useful in today's society. The author believes we need to embrace the ego archetype of the orphan, the most influential metaphor for the self, in order to become a whole and complete person. Madonna Kolbenschlag discusses how our society is particularly hostile towards women, resulting in an acute feeling of self-loathing, doubt, loneliness, and guilt. Today, women as the orphan feel a complete sense of powerlessness and abandonment, not only by everyone around her but also by God. Instead of suppressing our anxiety, Kolbenschlag advises that we should deal with it and remove the hidden layers of denial. We need to befriend the orphan within us and through all of this we will grasp a new insight and develop new spiritual consciousness.
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Few situations exist that can strip a person of their ability to influence their world as much as social desolation. In the words of Rudyard Kipling, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too h...
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