“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin tells a story with the central thematic tension of one person's life against the winning aspect of the greater good. On the frontier of space there are very precise rules that must be followed and when they are broken there is a punishment. In this story Marilyn hid on The EDS to see her brother who she had not seen in ten years. However, if she had only waited a year Marlin and her brother Gerry would have been working on the same planet. The ship captain has to report when this stuff happens, but when he called in he tried to save her because no one wanted this young girl to die. In the end the pilot had to kill her, yet he waited till the last moment giving her the time to write her last goodbyes and talk to …show more content…
This means that no matter who you are if you are found stowing away you must be disposed of. In the case if this woman this a very cruel punishment because she is only trying to see her brother. The reason she has to be disposed of is that there is just the right amount of fuel on the EDS to make it there, but if you add weight than the EDS will crash killing her and the pilot. Heres another way the story shows the greater good outweighing the value of a person's life. At the beginning of the story Godwin writes, ¨six men of the party already being stricken with the fever … and their own supply of serum destroyed … The Stardust had gone through the usual procedure; dropping into normal space to launch the EDS with the fever serum¨ (2). This evidence basically says that if she were to have stayed on the ship six people would have died. That is not counting she still would have died and so would have the pilot. There is also no telling how many other people could have contracted this disease and died. Lastly here is another great way that shows the greater good outweighing the value of a person's life. Nere the end of the story Godwin writes, ¨She stepped into the air lock and turned to face him … "I'm ready," she
W.D Valgardson perfectly shows that loneliness and isolation often leads to rash acts of cruelty, and to suicide or death. He describes this throughout the story by showing Gregory getting falsely accused of stealing his brand new pilot uniform. The author continues
Before the world was given its death sentence, John Osborne was essentially a coward. He never did anything outside of his narrow comfort zone and let his fears dictate his life, if it could be called livi...
you have because it could be taken away in a matter of seconds. The story starts in the late
I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies? … Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. … But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? The pray before You! They praise Your name! … I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man.” (Wiesel
(2:17). Instead of “standing on the side lines and doing nothing”, Fred wants his viewer to walk away with a lesson that could change the result of a bad event. The author's purpose of creating this presentation was to inform the viewer that if “good people do nothing”evil will win. So even if we help, without even knowing, it can change the result, after terrible things
Then, hesitating a moment, he reached out and shut off the communicator. It was 18:13 and he would have nothing to report until 19:10. In the meantime, it somehow seemed indecent to permit others to hear what she might say in her last hour.” (Godwin)
In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, is, though written like fiction, a true account of the murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. This evocative story illuminates new insights into the minds of criminals, and how society tends to act as a whole, and achieves its purpose by utilizing many of the techniques presented in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In In Cold Blood, Capote uses symbols of escape and American values, and recurring themes of egotism and family to provide a new perspective on crime and illustrate an in-depth look at why people do the things they do.
“You will surely grant and concede to me, that nothing more pernicious and fearful can happen to anyone than the loss of his soul.” (38).
...that he could only achieve a forum for his message of peace through an act of great violence. It was his hope that the sheer magnitude of his act would express how desperately people needed to heed his call.
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. --Fredrick Douglass “If the Lion told the Story” In "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass", Douglass uses his trials and tribulations to show that mental strength can overcome physical abuse while also showing us how faith is something that one must have to stay true to one’s self. “I was covered with blood.
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
“The stowaway was not a man—she was a girl in her teens, standing before him in little white gypsy sandals, with the top of her brown, curly head higher than his shoulder, with a faint, sweet scent of perfume coming from her, her smiling face tilted up so her eyes could look unknowing and unafraid into his as she waited for his answer.” Barton, the pilot has the internal conflict having Marilyn jettisoned and saving the six dying people on Woden. Barton wants to save the dying people on Woden, and he also wants to save Marilyn but he has to one. His choice was to have Marilyn jettisoned. Marilyn is such a sweet and nice girl but Barton has to save the people on Woden, he lets Marilyn stay on the ship for a while and talk to her brother ( which was her intent ) Eventually, he had to jettison her because he has to balance the cold equation in order to save the people in time on
In the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius confronts his unjust imprisonment with reason to illustrate how virtue always overcomes evil and how God as the supreme good can neither cause nor condone wickedness.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel shows us people who, despite the horrors they are forced to endure, remain good and kind hearted. For example Clark, despite his loss of a boyfriend and being stranded in an unknown airport far from his old life, goes on to create the museum of civilization and teach people about the past. The symphony is another example, they go from town to town performing for people and spreading news around the new isolated country. However, though some people endure and stay good, some turn to terrible acts which they would have never even considered before. Emily St. John Mandel uses The Prophet to show how otherwise normal and kind people can be driven to terrible
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”