Dr Heidegger's Experiment Sustainable Happiness

The Past, an ever growing pool of time, is always biting at the heels of a person. It reminds him of what they have done wrong, done right, or when he did nothing. For most people, recalling the past leads to loose ends and blanks where memories should be. No matter how much a person may want to return to the past, it is not possible. It is lost forever. These forgotten moment lead to uncertainties and confusion in the present, and chaos in the future. Forgetting the past leads to spirals, spinning downwards as people look to what they have lost. They retrace their steps hoping to find a sliver of who they are and what may become of them. In the poem, Itinerary, Eamon Grennan shows how an individual searches through his past, but can never return to it. Through the poem and with a personal experience I will explain how individuals deal with uncertainties in their pasts.

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

The protagonist fears, she may be forced to socialise with the inmates ‘smelling of pee’. Additionally expressing her feelings and obsession concerning hygiene. Unearthing Doris‘s neglected period of life, the saddest era of her being. In which recollections of Doris’s past history are triggered by present day objects such as; the wedding photograph of Doris and Wilfred represented to be a strong symbol, of the implication, in which Doris’s endless campaign against dust, has cause the glass to crack. Representing the destructive nature of Doris’s cleaning mania, and the separation of herself and Wilfred. Doris initial reminisces of the past, begin with thoughts like many of the elderly, of the golden days through coloured spectacles, in which the protagonist ruefully looks back upon the era where ‘people were clean and the streets were clean and it was all clean.’ The present for Doris lacks what she values and sees as important, and does not at all appreciate what the present has to offer – that is, a home- help; Zulema, and the prospect of care in an old people’s home. Doris perceives these interferences within her strictly controlled life as an adversary to challenge – if possible – demolish the remaining control the protagonist withholds within her life.

Hawthorne’s short story “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” highlights four major vices that humanity as a whole struggles with. For each of the four vices there is an elderly character that has failed at life due to them. The first such character is Widow Wycherly; her vice is vanity, the next is Mr. Medbourne; his vice is greed, after him is Colonel Killigrew; his vice is lust, and finally Mr. Gascoigne; his vice is corruption. All four of these characters are invited into Dr. Heidegger’s lab to partake in an experiment. They are given water that is believed to be from the fountain of youth. They will be given another chance to right their wrongs and fix their vices. Upon consumption of the water, the four elderly people begin to act young again and return to their old ways of vanity, greed, lust, and corruption. Dr. Heidegger said that, “if the fountain gushed at

This theory applies to Mrs. H. as she is struggling with accepting the death of her husband and her own feelings about her immortality. Due to her immobility issues, she is very socially isolated. She reports most of her friends have passed away, although she does have periodic visits from the pastor of her church and from her neighbors. She sees her great grandson two to three times a month and enjoys encouraging him with his school endeavors. Her daughter visits almost every weekend. She is attempting to establish a new meaning to this new stage of her life. She currently fluctuates from hopelessness and loneliness to a grudging acceptance of her current life changes.

The other reading of the story might be based on the maturing of a young woman. As it is probably the most important period in every adolescent's life, when they keep searching for their own identity, it should by strongly influenced by their parents. If it is not, a teenager starts looking for directions outside their home, and sometimes has difficulties with distinguishing what is good and evil. They are very often affected by

Many time we spend our whole childhood wishing we were older and now we’re spending our adulthood wishing to be younger. In the poems “Quinceanera” and “Rite of Passage” both Cofer and Olds explore the theme of coming of age and we acquire to truly live up to those adult characteristics that every child has within them , the authors use various literary devices, such as imagery, tone, and figurative language, such as similes.

We know that this is an issue in every time period and is addressed by many writers. Growing old does not change, but each age has its own way of dealing with the old. This paper

In society, once a male reaches 21, that male transitions from youth into manhood. When a male enters this transition, known as “coming of age”, this individual receives a bit of forewarning advice from a father figure. Although the father figure shares the advice, usually the young man does not take heed, and therefore regretful mistakes follow. Samuel Johnson’s “To Sir John Lade, On His Coming Of Age “ and A.E Housman’s “When I Was One-and-Twenty” depict the issues faced when entering adulthood and the regrets that one could feel after entering adulthood. Through tonal shifts and altered viewpoints, the authors give readers

Based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi “Happiness Revisited” People have many different points of view about how to achieve happiness, it can be based on the type of life one is having, an experience, a way of living, culture, and religion. Happiness can be defined in many ways but happiness is not something we find or get just by magic. In “Happiness Revisited” by Csikszentmihalyi, the author emphasizes that “It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.” And just as he stays that happiness is when someone is involved in everything that happens in live either good or bad, one example that I think Csikszentmihalyi will describe as an optimal experience

For example, In “The Birth Mark,” Hawthorne writes about a woman named Georgiana and her birthmark on her cheek. This actually symbolizes what goes on in his own life with his wife, Sophia. Hawthorne’s wife Sophia had a miscarriage and it caused him to undergo a “sexual panic and arrestment” (Marshall 38). When Hawthorne wrote “The Birth Mark,” it was written to disguise “sexual anxiety as cosmetology” (Marshall 38). This coincided with the virginity of women. Women who lose their virginity have a crimson stain hence the crimson birthmark on Georgiana’s cheek. Meanwhile, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” focuses more on the human heart. Beatrice and Giovanni truly love each other even though they cannot physically be together. Even at her death she wants to save Giovanni. While she wants to save Giovanni, Hawthorne states, “he remains trapped in the situation that her death allows her to escape” (Wachtel). Giovanni is left alone and poisonous. Finally, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” revolves around the effects of science on nature. Dr. Heidegger uses science to make his old friends young once again. His friends drink the concoction he created and they all begin to immediately turn into the younger versions of themselves right before his eyes. The elixir only lasts for a little while and then his friends end up old once again. Science caused the people to be young for a little while but in the end the elixir wore off and they went back to their original selves. Growing old is a part

Nathaniel Hawthorne is respected as “one of the great masters of American Fiction” (“Hawthorne, Nathaniel” 363). He is an accomplished author who wrote novels as well as children’s literature. However, Hawthorne’s strength is American short story; his “haunting” tales are undeniably responsible for establishing this genre as a “significant art form” (“Nathaniel Hawthorne” Columbia 1). He is known for his “penetrating explorations” of the conflicts within one’s conscience and the consequences that plague his characters, as a result of their disobedience (“Nathaniel Hawthorne” 1). These “dilemmas” of the “human condition” are prominent in his story, “The Birth-Mark” (Tuerk 1). Mosses of an Old Manse, is a compilation of short stories; which

If the four people drink the water from the Fountain of Youth, they will become younger, but will still commit the same atrocious sins they have committed in the past. He is testing the idea that people learn from their past experiences. Dr. Heidegger expects to see that these four people will still be flawed in the same ways and that they will not change, even though they have had a previous experience. He expects them to make the same mistakes because he believes there is a lot of ignorance within humanity.

As Emerson perceived the world, “Man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoes to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time” (“Self-Reliance” 833-834). Even if a man finds himself with both self-trust and originality, he may never realize his true potential if he is preoccupied with past events or future fortunes. Emerson finds these obsessions to be utterly useless: “Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is the infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend to your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired” (838). In contemporary society, a willingness to “live in the moment” is highly regarded, especially among youth, yet this acceptance seems to wane with age. Nevertheless, excessive anxiousness and nostalgia are a waste of the potential that can be realized when the truths of the present are

In this paper I will present and critically assess the concept of the principle of utility as given by John Stuart Mill. In the essay “What Utilitarianism Is” #, Mill presents the theory of Utilitarianism, which he summarizes in his “utility” or “greatest happiness principle” # (Mill 89). Mill’s focus is based on an action’s resulting “happiness,” # pleasure and absences of pain, or “unhappiness,” # discomfort and the nonexistence of contentment, rather than the intentions involved (Mill 89). After evaluating Mill’s principle, I will then end this essay by discussing my personal opinion about the doctrine and how I believe it can be altered to better suit real-life situations.