Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark Whose life is it anyway? is about Ken Harrison, a paralysed patient in hospital, and his battle to end his own life. The problem here is that he is incapable of committing suicide and has to turn to euthanasia. The hospital is against this. They cannot deliberately let a conscious person die. In this essay I will tackle the question above, how Brain Clark persuades us that Ken’s decision is right. The title of the play, 'Whose life is it anyway?' announces the issue. It is evidently Ken's life, but the amount of choice and free will he now has in it is minimal. Ken believes he is already dead, metaphorically speaking. Because, being in a state where he cannot carry out the things he would in an every-day life, is the same as being “dead” to him. I looked up the word ‘life’ in the dictionary and I found that it means “ Human existence, relationships, or activity in general: real life; everyday life” This is exactly what Ken does not have. So I can clearly see his point of wanting to die. Ken voices this point in the play: “I do not wish to live at any price. Of course I would like to live but as far as I am concerned I am dead already. I merely require the doctors to recognise the fact. I cannot accept this condition constitutes life in any real sense at all.” The absence of freedom and choice makes you wonder just how much of a life he is now in possession of. Despite it is his life - he isn't running it. Hence the title. This starts the play with a question and all further events are in answer to it. This shows it is meant to be, partly, a battle of wills between two sides over his... ... middle of paper ... ...he play is about one man fighting for his right to end a 'shadow of a life', against an authority who cannot give consent to him dying. Doctors say they should always preserve life. Before I read this play I agreed with this statement. Now, my opinion has changed. I believe it is not a matter of life and death, but an issue of happiness and unhappiness, or more importantly, choice. To sum everything up, the ways in which Brain Clark persuade the readers that Ken’s decision to die is right is by using Ken’s personality, his intelligence and the important quotes he voices, the conflicting view of the doctors and they way Brain portrays them as the “bad guys”, and most importantly, the matter of something that goes beyond life and death. The matter of Ken’s happiness. Anyway, who is to say life is better than death?
The point the author, Russell Baker, is making in his essay, “Writing for Myself,” is quite evident. When Mr. Fleagle, Baker’s English teacher, assigned an informal essay to be completed as homework, Baker immediately became baffled by the daunting task. Though reluctant to start, Baker knew that it he had to swallow his animosity toward writing and select a topic to write on.
People push being happy on society as a total must in life; sadness is not an option. However, the research that has conducted to the study of happiness speaks otherwise. In this essay Sharon Begley's article "Happiness: Enough Already" critiques and analyzes societies need to be happy and the motivational affects it has on life. Begley believes that individuals do not always have to be happy, and being sad is okay and even good for us. She brings in the research of other professionals to build her claim that extreme constant happiness is not good for people. I strongly agree that we need to experience sadness to build motivation in life and character all around.
This book talks about the immigrants in the early 1900’s. The book describes how they live their daily lives in New York City. It helped me a lot on Riis photographs and his writings on to better understand the book and the harsh reality this people lived. This comes to show us that life is not that easy and it will cost us work to succeed.
In Christy Wampole’s “How to Live Without Irony” and Richard Taylor’s “The Meaning of Human Existence” both authors argue how humans ought to live a meaningful life. Wampole tackles the argument in a different way than Taylor but they both have similar positions on the meaning. I agree with both authors in some of the ways that we should dictate our lives to justify meaningfulness but I also believe that meaningfulness can differ from person to person. Life is very precious to us; since humans have had the ability to consciously think, we have always questioning our existence. No other animal on the planet has had the luxury of pondering whether or not their life is meaningful.
A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard is an autobiography recounting the chilling memories that make up the author’s past. She abducted when she was eleven years old by a man named Phillip Garrido with the help of his wife Nancy. “I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name,” (Dugard ix). She began her life relatively normally. She had a wonderful loving mother, a beautiful baby sister,, and some really good friends at school. Her outlook on life was bright until June 10th, 1991, the day of her abduction. The story was published a little while after her liberation from the backyard nightmare. She attended multiple therapy sessions to help her cope before she had the courage to share her amazing story. For example she says, “My growth has not been an overnight phenomenon…it has slowly and surely come about,” (D 261). She finally began to put the pieces of her life back together and decided to go a leap further and reach out to other families in similar situations. She has founded the J A Y C Foundation or Just Ask Yourself to Care. One of her goals was, amazingly, to ensure that other families have the help that they need. Another motive for writing the book may have also been to become a concrete form of closure for Miss Dugard and her family. It shows her amazing recovery while also retelling of all of the hardships she had to endure and overcome. She also writes the memoir in a very powerful and curious way. She writes with very simple language and sentence structures. This becomes a constant reminder for the reader that she was a very young girl when she was taken. She was stripped of the knowledge many people take for granted. She writes for her last level of education. She also describes all of the even...
From the opening sentence of the essay, “We are free to be you, me, stupid, and dead”, Roger Rosenblatt hones in on a very potent and controversial topic. He notes the fundamental truth that although humans will regularly shield themselves with the omnipresent first amendment, seldom do we enjoy having the privilege we so readily abuse be used against us.
Ever since I have been in college my telephone has been shorting out every time I try to have a conversation with someone on it. It has been so aggravating! Especially when I am trying to talk and the person on the other line keeps saying, what, what...What did you say? It drives me crazy! Well when I got to college I was advised, and later informed, that it was a requirement to know how to use the Internet. So I signed up for an E-mail account. In high school I never used the computer for anything but assignments, but now I constantly find myself on line. I am either E-mailing friends far away, or talking to my family on IM (Instant Message). The Net has been most helpful to me when it comes to contacting others, especially since my phone doesnt work. Most importantly, I feel that the Net has brought my family and I closer together. After I read Finding Ones Own in Cyberspace, by Amy Bruckman, an essay explaining that to enjoy the Net we need to find our own place, our own community, so I realized that my community on the Net is E-mail, enabling me to talk to the people closest to me. The movie You've Got Mail starring, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, exemplifies how two people become closer through E-mail. Making it easier for people to connect in ways they always could, but never new how. Both the movie, Youve Got Mail, and Bruckmans Finding Ones Own in Cyberspace explore how the Net brings out a side of us that cannot be seen by the human eye. You've Got Mail is a love story about a man and woman who meet on the Internet and use e-mail to talk to each other. Although they havent met face to face they know so much about each other that if they were to meet, it wouldnt matter what the other person looked like. Hankss character owns a very popular bookstore that in turn makes Ryans tiny family bookstore go out of business. Therefore, Ryan hates Hanks throughout the whole movie. Everyday they seem to run into each other not knowing that the person(s) behind their faces are their soul mates. Little do they know the person they see everyday and the person that they despise is the same person they talk to every night when using E-mail or their I.
Epicurus was a philosopher who was born in 341 BC and lasted until 270 BC. He examined the situation of death and came to the conclusion that once one is dead, no harm can be done, due to the fact that they no longer exist. Stephen E. Rosenbaum is a philosophy professor. Rosenbaum wrote the essay “How to Be Dead and Not care”, in which he explains Epicurus’ views and then defends Epicurus’ beliefs about death. The reason why he defends Epicurus, is because he’s being logical. Rosenbaum also believes that we spend too much time thinking about death, which is something we will never have to experience. However, Thomas Nagel who’s a philosophy and law professor, disagrees with both Epicurus and Rosenbaum. Nagel believes that one doesn’t have to experience
Death as a weak entity that has no real power, because after we die, we
In “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” Dana Fleming presents an essay concerning the safety of social networking sites and how Universities can deal and prevent problems. This article is targeted towards school administrators, faculty, and a social networking user audience who will either agree or disagree with her statement. I believe Fleming presents an excellent, substantial case for why she reasons the way she does. Fleming gives a sound, logical argument according to Toulmin’s Schema. This essay has an evident enthymeme, which has a claim and reasons why she believes in that way. Toulmin refers to this as “grounds."
There are many policy issues that affect families in today’s society. Hunger is a hidden epidemic and one major issue that American’s still face. It is hard to believe that in this vast, ever growing country, families are still starving. As stated in the book Growing Up Empty, hunger is running wild through urban, rural, and even suburban communities. This paper will explore the differing perspectives of the concerned camp, sanguine camp, and impatient camp. In addition, each camps view, policy agenda, and values that underlie their argument on hunger will be discussed.
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
History textbooks seem to always focus on the advancements of civilization, often ignoring the humble beginnings in which these achievements derive. How the Other Half Lives by journalist-photographer Jacob A. Riis explores the streets of New York, using “muck-racking” to expose just how “the other half lives,” aside from the upbeat, rich, and flapper-girl filled nights so stereotypical to New York City in the 1800s. During this time, immigrants from all over the world flooded to the new-born city, bright-eyed and expecting new opportunities; little did they know, almost all of them will spend their lives in financial struggle, poverty, and crowded, disease-ridden tenements. Jacob A. Riis will photograph this poverty in How the Other Half Lives, hoping to bring awareness to the other half of New York.
In my book the Perks of Being a Wallflower, there are four main characters. Charlie, Sam, Patrick, and Mary Elizabeth. The way that the Author describes charlie is kind of like a sensitive young man who is trying to figure out what to do with his life. He doesn’t really have any friends because last year, his best friend died and his Aunt died in a car crash. Sam seems like a really energetic young woman who loves hanging out with her friends and listening to classic rock. I think that the Author made her character perfectly because every word she says, seems like she is happy on the outside but a little lost in the inside. Patrick is a jokester who is depressed sometimes because he is gay and his boyfriend has to pretend that he doesn’t love him. He is Sam’s step brother and they seem to be great friends. He loves music as well. Mary Elizabeth is a mix between a buddhist, and a punk. She shaved half of her head and on the weekends she has a show called “punk rocky” which is supposed to be a re-make of this show called the rocky horror picture show. She dates Charlie for a while but is controlling, and Charlie doesn’t really like her because he likes sam, a lot.