Creating Chaos and Losing Knowledge

The story “Folie a Deux” by William Trevor explores the complexities of curiosity and maturation. The narrator, inspired by literary devices, details an important passage of the story, which portrays lunchtime conversations between Anthony, his father, and Miss Davally, and follows with the correspondence between Miss Davally and Wilby’s mother – where all involve the exchange of information. The passage is meaningful because it demonstrates an appraisal of information, and its impact on progress. Ultimately, the story suggests that information is arbitrarily powerful, and that genuine maturation is only fostered through nurtured curiosity.

Adam Cooper started out as a fifteen-year-old boy, but became a fifteen-year-old man. In the beginning, Adam could not get along with his father, Moses Cooper, and truly believed that his father hated him. Moses was always getting on to Adam for everything he did. In Moses’ eyes his boy could do better than he let on if he would only apply himself a little bit more. “There was nothing that a Cooper man couldn’t do.”

In Nicholas Carr’s essay “All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands of Machine’s” he brings up the ethical problem of technology. Technology is all around today, but people are starting to wonder if this surplus of technology is starting to make the world less smart. Carr’s primary argument is as technology becomes more prevalent, people are losing knowledge to do certain tasks. Carr claims this is bad because people are putting their lives at risk and dying due to this lack of knowledge. People are starting to get lazier because of technology. They start to care less and think they are gaining something extra by using the technology, when, in fact it is the exact opposite. Carr states, “most of us want to believe that automation frees us to spend our time on higher pursuits but doesn’t otherwise alter the way we behave or think. That view is a fallacy” (5). This fallacy is affecting how people think and how current children are being taught in schools. Children as young as preschoolers are now starting to use tablets and computers for learning instead of having a teacher doing their job fully and actually teaching them. Instead of adding something to a task or helping to get it accomplished technology, “alters the character of the entire task, including the roles, attitudes, and skills of the people taking part” (5). Throughout his entire essay, Carr argues mostly why he believes too much technology could be harmful in the long run, but also states

The standard impression most people have of writers is that they can sit down and just let a perfect composition flow from their heads onto paper. In her writing career, Lamott has observed how “writing is not rapturous. In

    Children move through their childhood without a care in the world but have a wonderful time doing it, while adults push kids to become more adult like and figure out what they want to accomplish. As Holden is waiting for Phoebe to show up to say good-bye to her, he takes two boys who are skipping school to see the mummies (p. 203). These two kids do not care about math class, they just want to have a good time by going to the museum. This causes Holden

As aging occurs within humans, not only do physical changes occur, but changes in the mind occur as well. Changes that change the way the brain thinks and influences decision making, as well as reactions to certain situations that occur. These changes are apparent as the brain and body ages and can clearly be seen when those of varying ages interact with each other. In Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, one of the main themes appears to be the accustomed act of maturing, or growing up, specifically, how comprehension is different in people of different ages. Bradbury’s novel includes characters of various ages ranging from little kids to elders whose time has almost come to an end. These characters interact with one another throughout the

Often, we think of older people as being smarter, wiser, and generally more mature, but this is not always the case. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger gives a number of examples that shatter this generalization, offering an alternative to age as the primary factor in one’s level of maturity. Ordinary Grace shows how maturity is a result of circumstance and does not necessarily correlate with age.

Parents often say, “Listen to your elders.” This cliché can make some people apathetic, but when looking back, most appreciate the wisdom of their elders. The knowledge imparted to children is crucial for their ability to understand and improve the world. In XIV by Derek Walcott, the speaker uses imagery, metaphor, and other literary devices to convey the storyteller’s significance to his life.

“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart,” was said by Maya Angelou. Many authors strive to write books that have a purpose, including the author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author strives to display multiple purposes to readers through strong, sophisticated writing. The purposes Fitzgerald shows in The Great Gatsby include that substance in relationships matters, the truth is important, and that actions have consequences. Fitzgerald executes the purposes successfully by using rhetorical choices such as irony, homilies, simple dialogue, similes, and syntax

People often admire and yearn for the natural state of bliss a child has due to their ignorance of what 's going on around them. Although it is said that ignorance is bliss, but it is not always a good thing. As an adolescent, that bliss works to your advantage, but as a person gets older it only hinders your growth. Most times one does not know that they have remained stagnant until it has become known. In the novel Song of Solomon, by Tori Morrison, Milkman was unaware of his current state until it was made known to him.As a result, he unconsciously came of age through inner and external revelations.

When readers read a story written by an author they will usually think that the author likes to read books and is what led the author to writing a book. William Goldman said, “As a child, I had no Interest in reading” (Goldman 3), this can lead readers to imagining the author as a young child rather than an adult not wanting to read a book. When Readers imagine the author as a young child the image imagined can give a better sense of how the author felt as a young child. The imagination of a child giving the reader a picture to think about is less complex than that of a adult giving a reader a picture to think about.

At the age of three Walls was cooking her own meals. Her mother Rose Mary Walls thought that in order to survive in the world you have to experience it yourself. She said “Suffering when you’re young is good for you” (28). Rose Mary didn’t raise her children like any other parent did. She didn’t set a curfew for them or discipline them. She was more focused on her artwork, reading, and writing. She thought setting rules for children held them back from freedom. She said, “Rule and discipline held people back and felt that the best way to let children fulfill their potential was by providing freedom” (73). The children didn’t have regular classroom teaching like other children did. They had hands-on experience. For example, while her family traveled to their new homes, they drove through the desert and with that she learned about the stars, the different plants that grew in the desert. She also learned about the different types of rocks and minerals there are in the desert. She conducted experiments children her age wouldn’t do without the permission of their parents and the assistance of an adult. At an early age, she learned about the trading system.

“I don’t believe in predestined fate. The future is what we choose to create.” (Davidson). All the characters in a Brave New World, are created in the London center and are a part of different groups, therefore are made for different purposes. Inside the hatchery, workers program children to act and think a certain way based on their groups.

When one says that this elderly person has wisdom from various life experiences, he/she is not saying that the elderly person knows much about books and their profession. Instead, one would be speaking about the elderly person’s vast knowledge about what is important in life due to their multitude of experiences. While the elderly person may not be completely wise in the most encompassing form of wisdom, the elderly person does appear to have a more expansive understanding of what is important in life. Simply knowing what matters in life, however, does not satisfy the ultimate form of wisdom, for the wise must know why these things matter in life. That is, a truly wise person must have insight beyond the theoretical, into the practical. Beyond this, a wise person, in this view, must also know how to achieve what matters most, and, in knowing so, do what matters most. I say this because a truly wise person would be able to act upon what they know to be the most important thing in life. It is wiser for a person to act than to merely conceptualize what is most essential in life.

Growth is inevitable and the most anticipated quest of man. It is a never-ending quest to evolve, fuelled by the constant hope for survival. Once natural growth halts, man’s focus shifts to the growth within. The coming of age, associates itself with this transformation from child to man, the step of letting go of childish ways and moving on to more mature things. The need for such a dramatic transformation is questioned by Miguel de Cervantes and Lewis Carroll in their texts, Don Quixote and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. While the texts follow two contrasting characters, they are brought together by the theme of fantasy. Cervantes’ Don Quixote is an old gentleman of noble lineage who becomes tired of the monotony and the lack of