Great Sacrifices By Virtue And The Last Leaf By Isaac Singer

Everyone has a desire, something that they want to achieve or obtain for them. Whether it is ethical or immoral, having desires is almost inevitable. Sometimes these desires make people go through tough times. Tragic occurrences such as death and broken relationships shape the lives of people positively or negatively. In the following essay, “Many Rivers to Cross” and the short stories, “Two Kinds” and “Everyday Use”, the protagonists of these texts struggle to achieve their desire, but because of those struggles the main characters do eventually come to a revelation.

Throughout the two stories “Marita’s Bargain and A walk to the Jetty,” there were many comparisons and differences, but they both were willing to pay to fulfill their ambitions. Both women made sacrifices to better themselves. Annie sacrifice her family and old memories of her country for a new journey in her life. While Marita and other students sacrifice their time with family and friends or in Marita case, her mother, for homework. In these stories, sacrifices were made from time, family, and from these sacrifice success came out of it.

God challenges people in times of hardships, however, it depends on the person if they can take upon the challenge and keep faith in God. Eliezer Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of the memoir Night, is one of these people who have to take this test. Elie demonstrates faith is tested in times of trouble through the use of character relation, change in setting and the conflicts that he witnesses.

Opponents argue that forgiving someone who has committed a crime would be one of the toughest things to do for a person. They believe it would be very difficult to forgive soldiers for what they had done because they people they killed were part of their friends and family. How can they forgive someone who was so beloved to them. In the book, "The Sunflower" Sven Alkalaj argues that we don't have the right to forgive a person on someone else's behalf. For example, Simon couldn't forgive Karl because he killed someone else’s family member. Karl did not have the right to forgive on behalf of those families. As a result, Simon left the room without saying any word to Karl because Simon knew that Karl committed crimes and also asking the wrong

The social gospel was the biggest inspiration and influence for Civil Rights leader, John Lewis. Which is prevalent throughout the first two books, of the March trilogy, written by Andrew Aydin and John Lewis himself. The Bible made its mark on Lewis when he was young farm boy. Leading him to the social gospel which started him down the path of nonviolence, and longing not just for personal reform but for social reform. As the Civil Rights movements became bigger, and as the philosophy of which John Lewis taught spread, others were inspired by the social gospel.

I could feel the terror at the beginning of the poem “A Fig for Thee, Oh! Death” by Edward Taylor. He mentions falling in a pit of darkness that masks me feel that he fears death or that he is looking into the face of death. He continues talking about the lords blessing and how he’s missing it which I feel like he’s speaking about God’s forgiveness for his sins and evil doing. When he speaks about how his skin feels like a shell and how God is breaking into it, I feel like he’s talking about how he feels and how he’s vulnerable about everything that he’s feeling about in his life and how he’s so scared to breakdown in an emotional state in the face of God. However, I feel that he believed that when you die, you must face your sins and that

In the short story “Sea Oak,” George Saunders presents a family that is struggling with life in the poor neighborhood of Sea Oak. The narrator works as a male stripper in Joysticks, run by Mr. Frendt. The story also revolves around Auntie Bernie, who dies, resurrects, and dies again after advising the narrator, his sister Min, and their cousin Jade to adopt unorthodox and immoral means of making it in life. Two main themes that emerge in Saunders’ work are grief and loss that people suffer in life, and how the society teaches to deal with them, including the loss of a fruitful life, lack of wealth and success, as well as death.

Sacrifice does not always require death. It can be any type of loss, varying from loss of integrity, to freedom or pride. In DBC Pierre’s novel, Vernon God Little, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” the theme of sacrifice is communicated through the protagonists’ actions. The theme of the two texts, are demonstrated specifically through the character’s sacrifice of life, integrity, and dignity.

In the melodramatic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, the author uses the theme sacrifice. He shows that sacrifice is important in his story because some of his characters must give up their lives for another. Miss Pross dedicates herself to Lucie because she wants Lucie to have a brighter future than she did. Then, out of his love and devotion for Lucie Manette, Sydney Carton sacrifices his life to save a life she loves. The sacrifices Miss Pross and Sydney Carton make express that mankind will give everything for what they love and believe in.

In Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, a boy rebels against his father by climbing up trees, where he spends the rest of his life on, without ever touching the ground again. The philosophical residue is the idea that reason advances the human knowledge, which is a powerful influence to individuals, making people seek for it through books and logic. Accordingly, it is necessary for the improvement of society that it should govern people with justice and reason, not through sovereign authorities.

The novel “The Rites of Spring” is written by a Modris Ekstein is a Latvian author whose family was negatively impacted by the German occupation during the war. This literary work is based on the Ekstein’s claims about modernisms influence in the cause of World War 1. He divides the book into the acts similar to the play in that is the books namesake. Throughout this work, Ekstein argues that the ideology of modernism, which is primarily concerned with “introspection, death, emancipation, primitivism, abstraction, movement, and the creation of myths”; in the modern world, has mixed art and life and made aesthetics more important than previous eras. He further hypothesizes that this progression of Modernism is the cause of the Nazi regime taking hold of leadership in Germany, which resulted in World War 2 led by Adolf Hitler. Eckstein’s understanding of the outcome of the war centers on change that the US society underwent due to the cultural exchange brought on by the war with Germany, which served as the standard for the epitome of modernism. However, despite the influence the US society may have absorbed, Americans still maintain their socialist ideas, preserved their Anglo-American religion, and the ability to not have a consummating ethnocentric view. If war can serve as a medium of cultural exchange, then it is also likely that the ideals of Modernism would soon spread to the Western society via normal interaction outside of war, especially if Modernism is the ultimate

Do you feel an obligation to think about other people’s welfare? If you do, how far does that responsibility extend? Are you responsible for a sibling, a neighbor, or even a stranger across the world? The short stories I read help me think about the world around me and enlighten my understanding of my personal responsibility to others. First, these short stories show personal responsibility by describing to what degree we are responsible for the weaker or oppressed members of society. Second, the short stories I read helped me think about to what extent should we be driven by personal responsibility to act with compassion, empathy, and concern for others. Finally, short stories exemplify how we are personally responsible for our friends and how we live our own lives.

Leadership and management for many go hand in hand, and may be perceived as one in the same. In the book titled, The Servant (1998), James C. Hunter challenged this mainstream view, and literally turned this concept, which so many are coached on, upside-down. The notions of what characterizes a virtuous leader, as well as what it means to serve others, are the primary focal points of Hunter’s book. He did an eloquent job of revealing his theory concerning effective leadership by using an allegorical approach which, made the content easier to digest and much more personable. The Servant deeply resonated with me, and I gained significant value from the attitudes Hunter presented which, I can apply to my schooling, personal life, and future career paths. I was also able to discern what I felt to be applicable elements regarding the mark of a worthy leader, and arrived at my own theories.

I will be examining an image taken from the Book, Acts and Monuments, or better known as the Book of Martyrs. This book was written by John Foxe in 1563. Foxe was a devout protestant during a time where Catholicism was being revived By Queen Mary. This Image displays Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer was the Archbishop of Canterbury during King Henry’s regime and helped Henry annul his marriage with Catherine. Cranmer supported Royal Supremacy and was a huge reason for the creation of the Protestant Church during the Reformation. In his book, The Book of Martyrs, author John Foxe expresses his emotions for the protestant martyr Thomas Cranmer as he is being burned alive. Foxe was an English historian and author who used his skills to express his anger towards the suffering of Protestants under the Catholic Church. Foxe recorded the last moments of fellow Protestants who were executed under the rule of Mary. Cranmer was one of many martyrs that Foxe illustrated in his book. Foxe started working on his book in 1552 when Edward had power. After the death of Mary he met a publisher by the name of John Day where he started to publish Foxe’s work. His work didn’t make him rich, but he did become a celebrity for his literally skills. This book was attacked by Catholics and had many critics as well, which led Foxe to come out with several more editions of this version.

Sacrifice is a broad and well rounded motif, developed throughout the enlightening 1973 novel, ‘Sula’, by Toni Morrison. As an important motif, sacrifice can be a difficult concept for many people to do themselves and as shown in this novel, the audience is shown how the act of sacrifice has both good and bad consequences. How the act of sacrifice can be done through love and have a positive outcome, but more often than not and most common in ‘Sula’ there are either personal ramifications regarding sacrifice, or outcomes that do not have the expected reaction. As in Morrison’s other works, sacrifice is an underlying motif that is developed throughout the course of the novel in a way that allows the reader to empathise with the sacrificial characters. Sacrifice is a motif that Morrison develops through the multidimensional experience of motherhood and in particular, in the character of Eva and how her motherly sacrifices effected both her and her children. Morrison also develops this motif through marriage, specifically though Nel and Jude’s relationship and how marriage requires some sort of sacrifice for it to survive. In this case however, it may be the reason of its demise. As a motif that is at the very heart of the novel, the theme of sacrifice allows for a deeper understanding and appreciation of the novel.