Reflection on the Power and the Glory: Exploring Existentialism

All great people in the world are great because they believe in what they do; they have such strong conviction. When a person has no conviction, what is their purpose here on planet Earth? They abuse the precious life that they were given without leaving their mark as a human. Even if a person has a belief in a bad thing, they are still living for something. A twisted human soul appears very ironic for us, yet seems so common in the novel The Power and the Glory. Every single character in this novel has different perspectives of how they should live their lives, whether it be for a good reason, for the wrong reason, or to feel nothing at all. Conviction gives us the answer to the question, "Why am I here?" and without it, that question will remain unanswered and worthless.

A typical priest is married to the church, devoted to their religion and beliefs and convictions. For a priest to have a marriage outside of the church, not only would it be frowned upon, but strictly forbidden. The irony in this novel is so strong that the priest—one with no recognized name symbolizing nothingness—is an alcoholic attempting to feel nothing in his life. He breaks the regulation a priest should have by having a short relationship with a woman named Maria. The outcome of this was failure for the priest to obey rules as well as a baby girl named Brigitta. A man like this in our society who has so many flaws would be shunned and have awful prejudice thoughts towards him. People would think of him as nothing just like he thinks of himself, worthless. Asking himself, "Why am I here?" gives him some direction in his life, yet always refrains from asking the question and revert back to his old ways.

Children should obtain innocence, however, Brigitta seems stoic and like an adult in a child’s body, which is the exact opposite of children today—a child who portrays emotion and utilizes their innocence. She doesn’t get along with other children for the reason that she grew up so quickly and her family wasn’t like her peers’ families with both a mother and a father. Brigitta, like her alcoholic father, has no value to her life. With her dark, twisted personality, you wouldn’t expect her to do an act of kindness since she seems like she believes in nothing, yet she saves her father from being arrested and found by the police. If the priest hadn’t encountered Maria, Brigitta would be a normal child, but his neglect to follow rules as a priest led her to be an outcast, a nobody, nothing at all.

Very comparable to the Mechanical Hound in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Mr. Tench has no human soul; there is nothing that he, himself, believes in, so he just goes along with any conventions that appear in his life. Along without obtaining any conviction, he takes orders as if he were a robot. “Good God, one ought to do something… Of course there was nothing to do.” (216) The thoughts of this man are also structured and robotic, like his actions. He thinks that he needs to do something when there is something to do, but needs to be told to do it. Until he learns to do things on his own, he will never truly have conviction for anything or have a purpose to his life. When asking himself, “Why am I here?”, he wouldn’t know the answer and would need direction to answer it correctly, to get a task done the way someone else wants to, to see nothing through his own eyes.

One of the most hopeful characters in the novel would be Coral Fellows who has such motherly behavior, even more motherly than her own mother. This young, thirteen-year-old girl unlike some of the characters in the novel has a strong conviction that she truly believes in, and unlike most of the characters, it’s for a good purpose: to help. All she wants to do is help and assist others in what they do. She lends out a helping hand when the whiskey priest comes along and is willing to help him even though her parents are not. At a point in the novel, Coral is the priest’s only hope, the only one who accepts him and protects him, the only one who gives the slightest care to his messed up life, the only one willing to understand what he has gone through. Without characters like Coral, this novel would have absolutely no happiness.

Conviction: a fixed or firm belief. Nearly all people in the world have conviction for one thing or another, yet many characters in The Power and the Glory aren’t supposed to be worth anything and literally symbolize nothing in the words written on the pages of this novel. These characters choose not to believe in anything. They choose not to. All of these characters purposely exclude feelings from their lives. Many of them do not want to answer the existential questions that come along. Rather than living for something, for a goal of some sort, to believe in anything, they live to do nothing, aspire to do nothing, to believe in nothing, to be nothing themselves.

Life of Pi Reflection Essay

In the novel Life of Pi, Piscine Molitor Patel, otherwise known as Pi, lives in a life of paradox. All of the things that occur in this novel balance out equally. Pi relied on his conventions during the beginning of the novel and threw them out the window once he climbed aboard the life boat. Animals and humans create one person in this novel, with the animals playing the role as another side of the humans; Pi forgets all conventions as a human when his animal side shines through.

A taboo is a topic difficult to have a conversation on, and on the opposite end of the spectrum is a convention which is an agreed upon subject that is safe and comfortable to talk about. Conventions are like a locked up room with walls on all four sides and the only opening secured shut. This border that allows you to wander around in the general area represents safety. Our brains are wired in the way that we sometimes fear the unknown therefore enjoy to have our own, fixed area. "Animals are territorial. That is the key to their minds." (17) Animals, like humans, need the assurance that they have safety. Near the beginning of this novel, Pi experiences the gruesome scene of a goat being torn to shreds and it involved so much pain that he wouldn’t dare express his feelings about it nor bring it up to talk about from that point on. Further along in the novel, Pi is stranded on a life boat and his survival mode kicks in. Then and only then is when the Bengal tiger climbs aboard. "I descended to a level of savagery I never imagined possible." (197) He becomes forced to live outside of conventions creating another side of himself.

Understanding how a man can survive on a small life boat with a ferocious tiger on board is very difficult to understand until the idea comes up that the man and the tiger are actually one, single person. Richard Parker, the name of the Bengal tiger, is not really tiger but rather an alter ego for Pi. He thought this terrible side of him would kill him since it was irregular human behavior. This explains how the Richard Parker never slaughtered Pi, how they went blind at the exact same time, how both the man and the tiger regained their vision once again, and how they easily fit on the boat, however. It seems very hard to believe that Pi killed the hyena especially considering the hyena was also human.

Plato’s The Allegory Cave involves a man who lives among many people in a cave and he decides he wants to get out and discover how other humans live. "The three-toed sloth is not well informed about the outside world." (4) The sloth here is in the same situation as the man in the story and simply wants to see the world for what it is. This, however, is an example of a man breaking the agreed upon conventions. In Life of Pi, animals like to have barriers around them, but sometimes the animals gain the curiosity to know how the rest of their species lives. This doesn’t necessarily make zoo animals dangerous, just curious. “[E]scaped zoo animals are not dangerous absconding criminals but simply wild creatures seeking to fit in.” (42)

Paradox comes into play throughout the entire novel with several concrete examples. The hyena that is on the lifeboat with Pi actually is the character of the cook; the zebra also the sailor and Orange Juice, the orangutan, is Pi’s mother. When the hyena slays the zebra and decapitates the orangutan, the cook is really eating the sailor alive and taking of the head of Pi’s mom. "Its delights are too many to admit disgust at anything." (117) The people were all so feeble on this boat and the cook had reached such a severe state of starvation that he didn’t care if he persecuted these animals in a disgusting way, but found a happiness in having a full stomach; he didn’t want it to be repulsive so decided to not think of it as wrong. Another example of paradox, portrayed so clearly in this novel, is how life and death rely on each other. "The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity—it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can." (6) Life is such a miracle because death is such a tragedy. If we didn’t have catastrophic things happen in the world, life wouldn’t be so precious which is the reason why even death has a jealousy of life.

Life of Pi incorporates many ideas including paradox and conventions. From Pi growing up in a type of environment with animals, he grew to be just like them. Pi has his conventional, obedient lifestyle and then comes out his unconventional, rebellious, animal side. The creation of this other side of Pi allowed him to escape from his normal life and kept him from feeling the guilt he should from the hideous things he does to fellow humans on the lifeboat. This novel couldn’t bring these ideas out any clearer. For us as humans, including Pi, after being in an atmosphere for a long period of time, we change, so Pi changed many of his previous conventions to fit this renewed style of life. He gained knowledge from his treacherous journey in the wild, just as we will grow and flourish into our new selves.

The Effect Television Has on Us - Relation to Fahrenheit 451

The Effect Television Has On Us

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The relation of this article to Farenheit 451 is that TV can control one person, and when they step away from the screen like Guy Montag did, they strive to fix the world's problems.

Great Expectations Discussion of Characters

Love is wanted from every person in the world shown in all different forms. In the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, all of the characters illustrate a love of one thing or another. Some people have the love of impacting others with miserable emotions and others have the love of caring for another; one common theme that continues occurring in life is love.

The name Estella comes from the word star, always shining and beautiful. However, Estella has a dark inside with a heart so dim that she is unable to feel true love with a person. As she grew up, she was told by her adopted mother, Miss Havisham, to hurt people deeply, so from her own knowledge, Estella began to turn it around on her. “[I]f you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her… I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” (p. 307) Daylight was used in this quotation as an analogy to love. Estella knew what type of a person she had become: evil. She knew Miss Havisham had raised her to be hurtful to others and began to blame her for creating her into a monster. Although Estella recognized her bad behavior, the habit could not stop.

On the opposite end of the love spectrum from Estella, you will see Joe who portrays filial love. All of Pip’s family had died except for his sister who had married Joe, but she, like Estella, treated him cruelly leaving only Joe to care about the poor fellow. “But I loved Joe—perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him…” (p. 40) This brotherly love between the two helped Pip through tough times as a young boy. Pip moved up in society leaving Joe behind him, but Joe remained strong and still helped Pip out when assistance became necessary. He never expected people to go beyond what they had capability of and accepted them as they were.

Great Expectations exposed a large variety of characters, and each character had a distinct love of something. Not all love is great and not all love is bad; many people love sweets but feel guilty as they enjoy it feeling as though sweets are awful things to love, yet marriage can demonstrate a beautiful love. Estella has learned to love destroying others and Joe loves to care for others; though their loves differ from each other, love is important to them and to all people in the human race.

Honoring Our Veterans

Fires begin surrounding, friends lie dead next to you, you look down noticing that only one leg remains. You’re gasping for air, the smoke is thickening, and soon everything around you goes black. Then, awakening in the loud sounds of a helicopter, cruising through the air with people struggling to help save your life. Sadly, this man did not make it. People constantly sacrifice their lives for you every day. Some soldiers survive but end up handicapped for the rest of their life. So when is the right time to honor them? All the time.
Life is short; soldiers are willing to make their lives even shorter so that all of our country can live a more peaceful life. The attitude of how they live involves making life valuable and worth living. Your respect for veterans should be so high because they were willing to die for your protection and they were blessed enough to come back to America alive. All soldiers and veterans have bravery which is such a difficult trait to obtain. “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” — G.K. Chesterton.
Too many people in our country take things for granted like having a house to live in and having food to eat. Most people spend over three hours each day in front of a computer or a television screen. That is the exact definition of laziness. People need to realize that others are dying for them while they sit there and watch television. Every day you should realize what others do for you, even those that you don’t know. Respect veteran’s courage and take time in your day to appreciate the peaceful life you have, because it goes without saying that if you think your life is hard, a veteran’s life was so much harder. “The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.” — Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.

Reflection on the Good Earth

In the novel The Good Earth Wang Lung cannot wrap his head around the idea that he obtains the ability to turn his life around from the tragedy he believes waits ahead of him. People don’t live forever and Wang Lung knows what he wants in life to come; Wang Lung’s vision involves earning enough silver to live a comfortable life. Unlike the House of Hwang, this man wishes to spend his silver carefully rather than carelessly; by forgetting to look at good things on his earth, Wang Lung begins to develop into the person he always feared of becoming.

Women symbolize weakness in this novel, except for O-lan. This woman served as a slave in the House of Hwang and, when she married Wang Lung, O-lan helped him greatly symbolizing a very strong figure. Wang Lung hadn’t thought of her feelings much since she showed almost no emotion with her face always stoic. She announced she would give birth to her child yet O-lan said it as if she was on her way to the house to prepare a meal. “Her hair was still wet with her agony and her narrow eyes were sunken. Beyond this, she was as she always was.” (p. 38) Why were women treated poorly? In response to this, men felt like they needed power resulting in mistreating the women. If Wang Lung would take time to love O-lan for her strong qualities instead of judging her physically, he would end up living life on a much better path.

When Wang Lung got put into O-lan’s shoes, he felt as though getting treated the way he did reached a whole new level of disrespect. His uncle forced him to give him all of his food and Wang Lung has no choice, for his uncle threatens to tell all of the villagers of Wang Lung’s “greed”; yet his uncle must always get his way and talks the village people into coming to take Wang Lung’s minute surplus of food and silver. “If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half-fed.” (p.63) This man lived his life working on the fields; although his work can became a difficult task, it comforted him in a way that he himself could not notice. “It had come out of the earth, this silver, out of his earth that he ploughed and turned and spent himself upon.” (p.35) So Wang Lung learned that he must respect his uncle — one of the most unintelligent people he had ever met — not knowing how to recognize similar behaviors within himself.

The House of Hwang — exactly the opposite of the home of Wang Lung — symbolizes wasteful and greedy people. How did these people get so wealthy? Laborers and slaves began doing all work for the House of Hwang leading to their selfish image. In the House of Hwang, when there is silver, they intend to spend it; in Wang Lung’s home, silver will be stored for a time when it comes in need. “There is a way when the rich are too rich.” (p. 121) Secretly, he admires the extreme wealth of that home. “[M]ore than anything he wished to enter the great house with pride.” (p. 48) Poor men and women are lean and strong from doing their work on the fields whereas the small rich population look fat and lazy — somehow stylish for these Chinese people. As Wang Lung begins to care more about his pride, like the rich, things that should be important in his life become a blur.

“Why are you wasteful? Tea is like eating silver.” (p. 4) This used to have a deep meaning to Wang Lung yet when the cost of tea slipped his mind once, it changed his life forever. A new, extravagant tea shop had gotten built which brought to Wang Lung’s attention that a man who now has extra silver, like himself, needs a much more beautiful woman than O-lan. To his surprise, he can buy one of these dreamy women. Choosing carefully, Wang Lung decides to purchase Lotus. As his interest in her went up, so did his interest in his own image, like as the intake of food goes up, so does the number on the scale. He then buys laborers to do his work for him leaving him with some time just focused on Lotus and other times focused on himself, but too much of the time doing absolutely nothing. “One must eat. I do not care that my foolish belly is growing lazy after all of these days of little to do. It must be fed. I will not die because it does not wish to work.” (p. 93) This sudden change in Lifestyle, seemingly fantastic to Wang Lung, turned his life from going downhill to falling right off of a cliff.

All of Wang Lung’s important values vanished. He no longer worried about saving silver or showing respect, loving Lotus or even caring about his family. “As he had been healed of his sickness of heart when he came from the southern city and comforted by the bitterness he had endured there, so now again Wang Lung was healed of his sickness of love by the good dark earth of his fields and he felt the moist soil on his feet and he smelled the earthy fragrance rising up out of the furrows he turned for the wheat. (p. 214) The essence of Wang Lung’s uncle now appeared in him by controlling others and ordering them to do things for him. His journey from poverty, to owning land, to wealth, to greed leaves his children in the path of overspending and going right back to poverty. This same thing happened to the House of Hwang. One of his children knows he should sell the land so he does not end up like his father. “Now this second son of his seemed more strange to Wang than any of his sons, for even at the wedding day, which came on, he was careful of the money spent…” (p. 317)

Although Wang Lung forgot about his values, he remembered what was important when they were gone from his life, for example, when O-lan died, he regretted insulting her. “All through the long months of winter she lay dying and upon her bed, and for the first time Wang Lung and his children knew what she had been in the house, and how she made comfort for them all and they had not known it.” (p. 257) Even when he reached death, his land needed to belong to him. His sons felt the urge to rebel against their father who now seemed stupid to them, like how Wang Lung’s uncle used to seem dumb to him. This rebellion was so secretive that he could not see what they planned to do. “But over the old man’s head they looked at each other and smiled.” (p. 360)