Alienation Essays

  • Alienation

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    and destructive. In Walker Percey’s essay, The Man on the Train, he claims that love is ultimately a source of alienation instead of an escape into wonderful satisfaction. This theory is exemplified in Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, a story of a woman, Ellie, on a journey to fill her void of true love and escape her feelings of alienation. only exacerbates her sense of alienation instead of functioning as a cure. Until Ellie can find real love within herself she will never be fully satisfied

  • Exploration of Alienation

    953 Words  | 2 Pages

    Exploration of Alienation “It has to go”, cried his sister. “That’s the only answer, Father. You just have to try to get rid of the idea that it’s Gregor. Believing it for so long, that is our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that it isn’t possible for human beings to live with such a creature, and would have gone away of his own free will” (Kafka 52). The relationship between family member’s in Kafka’s Metamorphosis is an interesting

  • Alienation in Hamlet

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alienation in Hamlet In Hamlet, Shakespeare depicts alienation among the younger characters. Trusting no one, Claudius, the new king, and Polonius send out spies to obtain information from others to assure Claudius's rule of Denmark runs smoothly. Claudius killed Old Hamlet for the rule of Denmark and he fears that Hamlet might know of the murder. Both Claudius and Polonius spy on Hamlet to find out if he knows of the murder. Polonius sends his daughter, Ophelia, out to also gain information

  • Progress or Alienation

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    Progress or Alienation Our society has alienated itself far from the reality of the way things are and the way they should be, through the use and misuse of scientific knowledge and technology. Science is defined as, “a logical organized method of obtaining information through direct, systematic observation.” Sometimes science does not seem organized, in fact it seems like it opens us up to a different realm of possibilities that have consequences far beyond our wildest dreams. Scientific knowledge

  • Marx’s Alienation of Labour

    4459 Words  | 9 Pages

    Marx’s Alienation of Labour There is deep substance and many common themes that arose throughout Marx’s career as a philosopher and political thinker. A common expressed notion throughout his and Fredrick Engels work consists of contempt for the industrial capitalist society that was growing around him during the industrial revolution. Capitalism according to Marx is a “social system with inherent exploitation and injustice”. (Pappenheim, p. 81) It is a social system, which intrinsically hinders

  • Alienation in the lives of Arab Women

    7166 Words  | 15 Pages

    Alienation in the lives of Arab Women Alienation: al·ien·a·tion ( l y -n sh n, l - -) n. The act of alienating or the condition of being alienated; estrangement; isolation or dissociation. Alienation is a concept that is universal to all people of all cultures in the world and throughout all time periods. These feelings of alienation, in some form or another, have affected every human begin that has ever taken a breath and will until the race is extinct. It is these feelings of alienation

  • Alienation in Kafka's The Metamorphosis

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    life. He indicates that Gregor's family only saw him as a means of survival before the change and took advantage of him. After the change the family is unable to communicate with him because they are blinded by his outer appearance. Kafka's life of alienation directly relate to his development of Gregor Samsa, the outcast son who Kafka symbolically turns into a huge, repulsive creature.Kafka pulls much of his personal experience into the writing of this book. Kafka was a German-speaking Jew in a society

  • Alienation And Discrimination: Of Mice And Men

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    were often very lonely. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Crooks, a black stable buck, endures alienation due to racial discrimination. Racial discrimination also hinders him from any type of success. Despite the hardships, he overcomes these obstacles and faces this struggle head on. Forced into isolationism, due to segregation, alienation becomes Crooks’ companion. On an attempt for his alienation to be broken, Lennie walks into Crooks’ room “smiled helplessly in an attempt to make friends” (75)

  • Hester's Isolation and Alienation in The Scarlet Letter

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hester's Isolation and Alienation in The Scarlet Letter In Nathaniel Hawthorn's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmsdale have committed adultery, an unacceptable sin during the Puritan times.  As a result of their sin, a child is born, whom the mother names Pearl. Out of her own free will Hester has to face major punishments. She has to serve many months in prison, stand on the scaffold for three hours under public scrutiny, and attach a scarlet letter, "A" on her chest

  • Alienation in All Quiet on the Western Front

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alienation in All Quiet on the Western Front According to the Webster's New World College Dictionary, alienation is 1. Separation, aversion, aberration.  2.  Estrangement or detachment.  3. Mental derangement; insanity. The theme of All Quiet on the Western Front is about how World War I destroyed a generation of young men. It has taken from them the last of their childhood years, it has destroyed their faith in their elders, it has taught them an individual life is meaningless--and

  • Alienation in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alienation in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot The alienation of humanity from truth, purpose, God, and each other is the theme of Samuel Beckett's play, "Waiting for Godot." The play's cyclical and sparse presentation conveys a feeling of the hopelessness that is an effect of a godless, and therefore, purposeless world. Lack of communication, the cause of man's alienation, is displayed well through absurdist diction, imagery, structure, and point of view. The intent of the play is to evoke

  • Pornography Causes Desensitization, Aggression, and Alienation

    1271 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pornography Causes Desensitization, Aggression, and Alienation A pair of long luscious, shapely legs extend upward until they join in perfect harmony. Colorful panties cover what seem to be the smallest area possible as a slim torso with shapely breasts and a slender neck lead to a perfect face. There she is, the perfect woman, the perfect picture of lust. Yet, she is only a picture, but what unbelievable power she possesses. Any man who looks her way will question his desires and himself. Who

  • Alienation of the Main Character in To Build A Fire

    1506 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alienation of the Main Character in To Build A Fire In most novels and short stories, the emphasis lays on the main character. The author gives details on his personality, his skills, or his appearance one by one until we, as readers, get the final picture of what the protagonist looks like. However, this is not always the case; sometimes it seems in the writer's favor to limit the descriptions of the main character to a minimum, in order to allow him to put the emphasis on the theme. In the

  • Alienation in The Catcher in the Rye and The Grapes of Wrath

    606 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of alienation is relevant in both “The Catcher in the Rye” and “The Grapes of Wrath. It is an idea presented very prominently in both books, expressed through characters, actions, and events. The Catcher in the Rye focuses on Holden Caulfield, a socially inadequate, sixteen year old boy who distances himself from others as a display of mental superiority driven by the idea he possesses that everyone is a phony, while he appears to be the only one who has remained genuine and authentic in

  • Karl Marx - Capitalist Alienation

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    production such as raw materials, machinery, overhead and wages. The left over amount was kept as profit, a profit that Marx saw that was earned from the sweat of the labor. Derived from his idea of surplus value was that of alienation. Marx gave an economic interpretation to alienation. People were alienated from their own labor; their work was appropriated by someone else and the work itself was compulsory, not creative; the cause was capitalism, and the cure was socialism. Marx believed that modern

  • Themes of Alienation and Control in James Joyce's Araby

    1851 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alienation of “Araby” Although “Araby” is a fairly short story, author James Joyce does a remarkable job of discussing some very deep issues within it. On the surface it appears to be a story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for the girl he has a crush on. Yet deeper down it is about a lonely boy who makes a pilgrimage to an eastern-styled bazaar in hopes that it will somehow alleviate his miserable life. James Joyce’s uses the boy in “Araby” to expose a story of isolation and lack

  • Hester's Psychological Alienation in The Scarlet Letter

    1333 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hester's Psychological Alienation in The Scarlet Letter Throughout his book The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne is preoccupied with the relationship between the individual and society. Hester's sin and subsequent condemnation alienate her. No where is this alienation more apparent than in Chapter 5, "Hester at her Needle". Condemned by her sin of passion, Hester is  separated from her community, not only physically, as she lives on the edge of the town, but also socially

  • Despair and Alienation in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Winter Dreams

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despair and Alienation in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Winter Dreams While some readers enjoy the genre of mysteries, others enjoy romance or westerns. But for some people the tragic tales of someone’s despair and alienation from someone or something they love is just what they want to read about. Ernest Hemingway’s styles have evolved throughout his career and I feel The Snows of Kilimanjaro represents the ideas of a man who is greatly in despair and alienated. As well, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s

  • Transcending Herbert Marcuse on Alienation, Art and the Humanities

    4408 Words  | 9 Pages

    Transcending Herbert Marcuse on Alienation, Art and the Humanities (1) ABSTRACT: This paper discusses how higher education can help us in accomplishing our humanization. It looks at the critical educational theory of Herbert Marcuse, and examines his notion of the dis-alienating power of the aesthetic imagination. In his view, aesthetic education can become the foundation of a re-humanizing critical theory. I question the epistemological underpinnings of Marcuse's educational philosophy and

  • Alienation of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    Willy's Loneliness and Alienation in Death of a Salesman Willy Loman’s feelings of alienation and loneliness are direct psychological results of his interaction with society and the conditions that are found within it.  Although, he does not necessarily have the ability or allow himself to have the ability to define his feelings as such, they are still very much a part of his everyday existence.  This is evident in his constant bragging and attempted compensation.  He does not feel that he is