Dazai Osamu By Kafka

Traditions throughout culture change with time, yet in most instances, a handful of people refuse to change their methods or beliefs. In “Dead Man’s Path,” Chinua Achebe creates a changing society and presents a group of people who are unwilling to change their way of life and adapt. Achebe uses symbols, allusions, characters, and setting development to give the reader an interpretation of the changes made throughout society that creates a conflict between a new generation and an old generation.

Over the course of time the male species has always been the gender to attain the more favorable conditions. Numerous cultures heed to the belief that the man is the provider and head of his family. This machismo nature can condition the mind to believe that a man should feel superior to a woman. The continuous cycle of male superiority flows down from father to son subconsciously. Do to this unceasing sequence of behavior women fall subject to repression and control at the hands of mentally undeveloped men. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, illustrated this particular topic in a way that not only appealed to the readers’ sense of pathos but, the readers’ likeliness to be able to relate to the aforementioned as well. Chopin stylistically renders the struggle of the protagonist Edna Pontellier, a strong willed woman who finds herself imprisoned to the concept of trans-temporal existence, as she seeks refuge to her true being, Edna experiments relationships with multiple men that unintentionally repress her existence. Between Leonce Pontellier, Robert Lebrun, Alcee Arobin and The Colonel effect of Edna’s life they catalyze her awakening and ultimately lead her suicide.

Even up to the year 2016, several hundred years after Christian missionaries and Japanese Christian converts had been persecuted in Japan (日本), there resides a complete total of under one percent of Christians living within Japan, which possesses a population 126,354,292 people. It is quite a different story in China (中国) however. The amount of Christians present in current day China is somewhere between two to three percent of the whole population, which reaches 1,381,537,308 people. China’s Christian population is also developing much more rapidly that Japan’s Christian population. Why is this the case exactly?

Imagine living in a world of perfect paradise, where no one disturbs you or takes away your freedom of thought. You’re living in pure harmony and feel as if your life is going to be peaceful forever. But what if one day someone comes along and changes your world, taking away your custom beliefs and changing your culture. What would you do? In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the character Okonkwo, an indigenous member of the Ibo tribe, comes in conflict with the European settlers as they try to convert his tribe to Christianity. Even though many people choose to convert to this new system, Okonkwo, along with a few friends, respond adversely to this foreign settlement as they attempt to restore order in their native village. As the Europeans bring their religion, messengers, and government into the tribe, the outcome of Okonkwo 's response, causes him to bring his identity into query when he realizes that things that were formerly common, will always collapse in the end.

In the autobiography of Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates explains how the education system shackled him, instead of empowering him to liberate his soul and mind. It wasn’t until he was enrolled in Howard University, where he found comfort in an educational system. Before attending Howard University, Coates was blinded by society’s view of the “black body”, and what it was capable of accomplishing. The limitations and lack of support on their side, bounded African Americans and made them feel insecure. The discrimination African Americans faced in their daily lives was no different in an educational environment.

I felt extremely connected to the true story Into Thin Air, written by Jon Krakauer, because of the people written about. I personally felt a connection to Beck Weathers. He is a doctor with strong political opinions that he knows how to back up. I am not a doctor, but I do have strong political opinions that I know how to support. I, like him, get into multiple political rants. Some of my friends warn other people, like Krakauer’s fellow clients warned him, not to get into political arguments with me or to ask me political questions, because I will argue my point and disagree with you for as long as possible. Rob Hall, another one of the climbers written about, gave me a special impact. He reminded me of my father. Like Rob Hall plans his

Claude McKay’s 1919 sonnet, “If We Must Die”, came at a time when African-American lives were conditional, and seemingly dependent on the actions of the white community. McKay’s choice to write his poem in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, a form usually reserved for flowery love language, could be attributed to either establishing his worth as a writer to a community not so accepting of black writers and/or to use an easily understood format to convey the strong message of injustice within American society at the time. The times surrounding this poem was an era of hostility and racial tension, where the lives of black men were less valued than their white counterparts. McKay’s “If We Must Die” is reminiscent of a speech which rallies a group of soldiers going into battle. However, rather than soldiers, the audience is the African-American community dealing with their day-to-day lives.

Jon Krakauer’s group, on April 16th, began their 2nd acclimatization starting from base camp and climbing up too camp one. Hall, the group leader decided that he would like the climbers to stay at camp one for two nights, camp two for one night, then after that, go back to the base camp. The next morning they left for camp two, which is about four miles above where they were at camp one. On his way up, Krakauer sees a dead body. The dead body stuns him for a little while but then he continues on up the mountain towards camp two. The group makes it up to base two. The altitude greatly affected Krakauer he mentioned how all that he could do was rest in his tent with his head in his hands. The next day, after feeling a little nit better, climbs a little higher than camp two to work more on his acclimatization. While on his climb he comes across another dead body but this one does not affect him as greatly as the previous one. Jon’s group began to climb; the wind chill was forty degrees below zero. Jon, before he left, expected the sun to heat him up so he underdressed and then during the hike, became too cold to continue as his hands and feet were completely numb. Everyone from Jon’s group, except for Doug who is injured, make their next attempt to reach camp three. Jon Krakauer makes it to camp three, finally. Camp three is about one mile, vertically, below the summit of Mt. Everest. Jon’s group then descends down to the base camp again. Every on in his group is physically

In this excerpt of “The Egg” the father appears to be striving for something, aspiring to be impressive and advanced, and struggling to be more that he really is. His character advances the theme of desire. The effort made by the father to impress Joe Kane provides enough evidence to support this characterization. From the grotesque deformed body of the bird in the bottle to the desperate squeezing of a boiled egg into a bottle, it all points to the eagerness of the father to impress and to be seen as advanced. When he fails to accomplish what he desires, the “roar of anger” that rises in his throat shows the intensity of his longing. Also, this anger exhibits an underlying sense that the father knows he will fail and cannot achieve what

Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel called Maus about the Holocaust. This book tells the story of Art’s father Vladek. Art writes about how he interviews his father later in his father’s life to learn about his experiences in Nazi Europe in the early 1940’s. The book contains many sad stories of death and destruction. Art uses the medium of comics so that his readers are able to see and read about the awful happenings during the Holocaust. Vladek demonstrates many abnormal behaviors throughout the novel because of his disturbing experiences. Throughout the story, it is shown that the Holocaust affects almost every aspect of Vladek and Art’s lives. Through diagnosing both Vladek and Art with post traumatic stress disorder, we can better comprehend

The novel Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata exposes the emerging movement from tradition to westernization in post-war Japan. Kawabata enriches his novel with a variety of intricate relationships between children and their parents, exposing how loss of tradition begins at home. Ironically, Kawabata then depicts how even teachers of tradition manipulate it with their hate and jealousy to achieve their sinister motives, tainting the new generation’s knowledge of tradition and thus moving them away from it. The movement away from tradition allows the new generation to easily recognize and be influenced by the westernization during post-war Japan. Through parents, Chikako’s poison, and the new generation; Kawabata explores the decaying tradition of the tea ceremony, successfully exposing the shift from tradition to westernization in post-war Japan.

"Life is a challenge; meet it." If you were told to face your challenge, would you? How would you encounter life's challenges? Good morning, and welcome to the "Personal Growth Festival." Today I will address my speech to the topic of "challenge" and will be relating it to Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing and Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto; texts which I believe will display film and literary techniques in relation to the topic. I hope this speech will spark your thoughts with interesting and useful information.

Abraxas (pronounced “ah-BRAKS-us”) is a Gnostic name that appears in many ancient texts. Abraxas is a complicated figure whose image has changed with the passing of time. A lot of what we know about him was recorded through the filter of Christian heresy hunters who, as we all know, were not always right. But as far as we can tell, originally he is the head of 365 other spiritual beings of Gnostic lore. He was oftentimes depicted as a half-man/half-basilisk creature conceived as a god or a daimone, which we know because of all the ancient amulets with

Africa is the most diverse continent on this planet, linguistically speaking. There are thousands of languages spoken within many different cultures of people in Africa. Although most of Africa received freedom in mid-late 20th century, it has a very rich history and a strong background on which it is built. After colonization of Africa by the Europeans, the Europeans and their writings looked at Africa as having no diversity or culture in its colonized stage. Things Fall Apart was written as an argument to those writings and the Europeans proving that Africa is diverse.

Chua Mia Tee is one of Singapore’s leading realist painter, often known for his oil paintings, which portray Singapore’s culture. Having grown up during Singapore’s tumultuous years, his early paintings reflect nationalistic concerns that occupied Singapore during our early years. More specifically, his artist style has been called Social Realism, a school of art that responds to the industrial revolution and urbanisation, focusing more on working class realities. Many of Singapore’s social realists blended anti-colonial sentiment, nationalist aspirations and socialist concerns in various proportions in their work.