Time is forever moving forward, constantly progressing and as time progresses, societal values and beliefs adjust and develop, yet there are some values and ideas that remain constant. Despite suffering being a natural and an unavoidable aspect of human life, people have developed the skill of avoiding its existence. Even though created in disparate time periods, Ovid’s ‘Icarus’, Breughel’s ‘Fall Of Icarus’ and Auden’s ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’, all present their society's principle of human indifference towards the suffering and the continuance of the human life, as suffering occurs.
W. H. Auden’s ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’ exposes society’s indifference towards suffering. Through the poet's conversational tone, Auden places the reader in front of Breughel’s painting ‘Fall Of Icarus’, and uses the piece to manifest how self-concerned human beings are. Suffering is a normal aspect of life, it is occurring all the time, while we go along with our normal activities, “While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along”. Just like the enjambment of Auden’s poem, life doesn't pause, even in the face of human suffering. At the time this poem was
…show more content…
But just because there is suffering in the world, why should the rest of humanity care? A question
We have the capabilities to decrease this suffering and pain nevertheless, we disregard the problem and do nothing at all, which can be immoral. We should modify our opinions of morality so as to develop a dedication to helping people in terrible need.
The idea of suffering is prominent throughout the story in various ways both in music and drug abuse. The unnamed narrator experiences suffering through losing his young daughter Gracie, the loss of his mother and his younger brother being incarcerated. A lot of the times the unnamed
The theme of suffering will be talked about throughout this essay. Even though it isn’t the most pleasant topic to talk about, it is part of our lives. The dictionary defines suffering as “The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.” This essay will examine suffering and how it shows up in different printed sources, as well as in my personal life.
Indifference to the suffering of others keeps humanity divided. As Elie Wiesel said in “The Perils of Indifference”, “[Indifference] benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten” (2). When one sees a victim suffering, one may be indifferent to the victim’s sufferings. This diminishes the hope that the victim once saw and had, because without anyone showing concern for their sufferings, victims can believe that even their own humanity has betrayed them. This in turn creates a lack of trust among
Auden touches upon many topics in his poem “Musée des Beaux Arts.” The Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century writes that, “the poem condemns people's habitual inattention to the miseries of others” (Mao). In other words, one of the primary focuses in “Musée des Beaux Arts” is that of apathy. Auden begins his poem by writing, “About suffering they were never wrong, / The old Masters: how well they understood / Its human position: how it takes place” (lns. 1-3). Here, Auden is setting up another one of the poem’s main topics, which is human suffering. Auden is writing about how the “old Masters” knew how to capture the image of human suffering within the confines of their canvases (ln. 2). Auden then writes, “While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; / How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting / For the miraculous birth” (lns. 4-6). In these lines Auden is telling his readers that ordinary life will always go on by stating that the old patiently await the arrival of newborn babies, which is a reference to the circle of life. He continues this idea in the next few lines when he writes, “there always must be / Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating / On a pond at the edge of the wood” (lns. 6-8). In lines 6, 7,
Dickinson’s “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” is a short poem about the struggles and hard transition of getting over the heartbreaking feelings that come after a great tragedy in one’s life such as losing someone; a friend, a lover etcetera. In a sense, this poem is very general, yet it cannot be applied to just any situation. It is general in the sense that those who have gone through such feelings of pain and lose know exactly what kind of “numbness” and hollow that Dickinson writes about; the feeling of not wanting or caring about what life has to offer anymore for a time once the “great pain” has first occurred and how hard it becomes to continue daily tasks, activities and routines. This poem is specifically about confronting the pain and making sense of it, and understanding that a great pain is a very
As human beings everyone suffers but we all suffer differently. Some suffer emotionally, some suffer physically, some suffer mentally. And through suffering and pain we gain different experiences, we either overcome pain and sorrows or we break down waste our lives. Edwidge Danticat present the theme of suffering in each of her stories. In all the stories the characters have to go through pain, but they all over come it in different ways. This is true in real life too. in the children of the sea that characters suffer but the outcome is that, in 1937 the outcome is inner peace, and My outcome is discovering myself.
One particular paragraph is especially eloquent, and warrants closer analysis: “People grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and
The lines are enjambed with phrases stopping in the middle of new lines and lines spilling into other lines. The lines do not pause to acknowledge the end of sentences like people seldom pause their daily lives to acknowledge the suffering of those around them. Auden also uses bad syntax in the last line of the poem, "had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.” Auden may have chosen to write in this free form to demonstrate that people are so indifferent to what is going on around them that it does not make any difference what form the poem is written in, as it will only be overlooked and not given any attention. The form of the poem allows the reader to consider the ways in which suffering is masked by the frenzy of everyday life and that even the acknowledged suffering of others does not seem to be of any concern to anybody but the sufferer.
Because we are taught to only care about ourselves, we are highly apathetic about others, especially those that we do not have direct contact with. We simply do not care about the conditions that other people live in, how or whether they eat, or whether they have a dry, safe place to sleep at night. As long as how others live does not affect us, we have no reason to care, because society teaches us that we are the only ones that matter. As long as we are happy, we don’t have to care about anybody else. Even if we are not happy, we only need to care about others just enough to get them to give us
“Suffering” is a word which carries negative connotations, used to incite pity, empathy or fear. Why would it not? Is suffering not simply agony, defined justly by the Oxford Dictionary as “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship” (“Suffering)? Yet, we accept suffering as part of life, a fundamental aspect that defines living. Nietzsche tells us that the very act of living is suffering itself, but to survive is to find value in that suffering. Yet, what sort of value can be attached to an idea so negative? Pico Iyer’s editorial in the New York Times explores the value of suffering, likening suffering to passion and “[p]assion with the plight of other’s makes for ‘compassion’” (________________).I began to think upon the cohesive
Quran and Bible has a lot of similarities but also has some different . For example,Satan is an angel and therefore not a jinn.Or he is a jinn and therefore not an angel, which makes Allah unjust for blaming him for not obeying a command given to the angels and not to the jinn. Or the jinn are angels which introduces another contradiction as we will demonstrate shortly. The another example is if Jesus is god or not. Finally, are we basically good or sinners.
Suffering is a staple to the human condition. It can light the fire beneath and push progress, or it can lead to wallowing and a sense of helplessness. Often, helplessness leads to despair, which leads to more suffering, beginning an endless cycle of distress and anguish. Once stuck in this cycle, personal suffering begins to affect all aspects of one’s life, especially the environment around them. This feeling moves across genres and literary eras, giving a sense of human connection across generations. In Robert Browning’s Caliban Upon Setebos, Caliban is stuck in the world of an uncaring god. With an inability to please him, Caliban is helpless in his plight. Similarly, Hamm, from Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, is stuck in a cycle of
Another important factor of an infant’s development is their cognitive development. Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. The infant’s cognitive development can be assessed through measuring the five senses (Groark, McCarthy & Kirk, 2014). The baby’s senses start to develop in the womb and get better as they develop.
In terms of my medium term goals, while feeling assured of my responsibilities within the organisation, the presented feedback from my peers and lecturers is that I appear to be confrontational. Whilst accepting constructive criticism, I feel prior reflection leading to the MBA course has developed thought processes which have yet to become apparent. I will address this, however I understand that this will not be easy and will take time to achieve.