“I have no mouth, but I must scream”, is a book written by Harlan Ellison that recounts the tale of the demise of the human civilization at the hands of a sentient master-computer named “AM” who, after gaining sentience, picks five random people to torment for eternity to appease its endless rage. Ted, one of the “survivors” who has been tormented for the past 109 years, proves that despite living in a literal hell, a human is inherently an altruistic being able to sacrifice himself to save his kin from despair. Two of the main points that lead me to this thesis and that will touched on are: The buildup of the heinous acts of “AM” on the group, and Ted’s selfless act to save the others despite not being too close with each other. Firstly, we must understand to what abominable extent AM has gone to torture these poor souls and how low of a point he drives them to. Four of them are altered physically and mentally. “AM” gave them all artificial immortality to survive the most …show more content…
While the group is looking for the next stash of food "promised" by "AM", the group stumbles upon a cavern with ice crystals and Ted realizes how he can save them. "All in an instant: I drove the great ice-point ahead of me like a battering ram, braced against my right thigh. It struck Benny on the right side [...] All in an instant." The use of "All in an instant" here leads me to believe that Ellison wanted to show us that when Ted finally found a way to beat "AM", he didn't think about the consequences afterwards and his human nature took over his body in a way. This eventually lead to everyone dying except for himself. Furthermore, Ted stated about his group "But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me.", which leads us to think that he'd never do anything to save their skins over his; once again implying that human nature is inherently
By the end, the only emotion left among the prisoners is fear. The prisoners desire food more than anything, two cauldrons of soup are there for the taking, “but who would dare?” (66). The prisoners are crushed by the fear of death or pain, and drop their hope and desire, having lost the last vestiges of humanity. Without their humanity, the only thing that matters to them is satisfaction of bodily requirements, and the prevention of
After watching “The Language You Cry In” in class, I found myself reflecting on how music has impacted my life and with whom I have shared it with. It’s truly incredible how a simple, 5 line chorus ultimately allowed this woman to discover her history as it traveled from Sierra Leone all the way to the Gullah society in Georgia. The really displays the power that music can have over not only individual societies, but over the globe. No matter what political movements were occurring and throughout the immense inequality and slavery that was being faced, music has always remained reliable. This song brought people together and allowed them to embrace their heritage even in the worst of times, and I believe that this is still true today.
He was finally free, no joy filled his heart but abandonment was drowning it. How dangerous is indifference to humankind as it pertains to suffering and the need for conscience understanding when people are faced with unjust behaviors? Elie Wiesel is an award winning author and novelist who has endured and survived hardships. One of the darkest times in history, a massacre of over six million Jews, the Holocaust and Hitler himself. After the Holocaust he went on and wrote the internationally acclaimed memoir “Night,” in which he spoke out against persecution and injustice across the world. In the compassionate yet pleading speech, ¨Perils of Indifference,¨ Elie Wiesel analyzes the injustices that himself and others endured during the twentieth century, as well as the hellish acts of the Holocaust through effective rhetorical choices.
In the speech, “Perils of Indifference,” Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, conveys his message that indifference entices inhumanity as a lack of acknowledgement to a person’s suffering is advantageous to an assailant and “elicits no response” (3). Therefore, the individual with a sense of indifference is a determining factor in others’ distress because without their involvement, the victim will never be assisted. Sentiments of anger and hatred possess the ability to endorse positive conclusions; however, “indifference is never creative” because of the absence of participation (3). Wiesel develops his claim by providing a series of background information to display credibility, personal experiences to amplify the emotions of the audience,
The author’s narrative, ripe with horrifying descriptions, is nonetheless told with compassion appealing to the emotions of the audience
For my conceptual artifact, I decided to go with a film that I watched in High School called No One Would Tell. This film is a great example of dating violence and covers a lot of the phases of being in an abusive relationship. The film is centered around two main characters, Stacy Collins who is the girlfriend being abuse and Bobby Tennison who is the abusive boyfriend. This film goes to show how a relationship that looks happy to many people, may actually have darker secrets. Through the film we see the level of abuse rising, but at the same time we see Stacy falling prey to all of Bobby's pleas of forgiveness. Like in many real lifes cases of domestic abuse, it’s not as easy to get out as many people would think. Unfortunately, Stacy was
Steve Almond’s story “You Knock my Brains out This Sunday and I Knock Your Brains out the Next Time we Meet” speaks to the underlying truth about America’s Sunday pastime and how concussions can be prevented not only by the industry, but by its viewers as well. Football is well known after having been brought to the public’s eye as study after study was released proving that there was a link from football to head injuries. Although in our modern society we have already subconsciously made the connection between football and concussions. The fact that this problem is not decreasing, could be surprising, as the lack of understanding about who has control and the ability to influence change. We hear that football helmets and pads, are getting better, but that does not stop concussions. We do not hear how helmets make players feel and change their play style based on the feeling of invincibility that people feel while wearing a helmet. Pads and helmets do help protect the players but false senses of security due to lack of knowledge on what
Humanity is one of the many virtues we as humans believe we are born with. However, living in a world much like the one described in both The Hunger Games and The Road novels, some may argue that turning off one’s humanity is a necessity. Nevertheless, both novels prove that while some characters had to turn off their humanity in a horrific world like The Hunger Games and The Road, the two main characters of each book demonstrated how a barbaric world could not take that virtue from them.
Holocaust survivor and writer, Elie Wiesel in his influential speech “The Perils of Indifference,” claims that indifference is the root of all evil and inhumanity---all pain and all tragedy has resulted because of indifference. He supports his claim by highlighting the reason for “World Wars,” “Civil Wars,” “Assassinations,” “Bloodbaths,” and “Tragedy---” indifference (Wiesel par. 5) . Specifically, Wiesel uses imagery to paint an image of what the innocent victims of indifference experience. The poor “children [that] perish” because of the indifference in a man’s soul; until they see the children’s “pain” and “agony” and “hear their pleas,” until “one of them dies” because of the “violence,” “disease” and “famine,” then one will notice the dangers of indifference (Wiesel par. 23) . Further, the author flashbacks to past events that have left humans without a soul. He mentions how one day he “woke up in a place of eternal infamy, Buchenwald.” Remembering the day he is captured and the day he is “free[ed]” (Wiesel par. 1) . The problem now is that “there [i]s no joy in his heart;” he becomes a victim of indifference---the metal torture (Wiesel par. 1) . Wiesel’s purpose is to inform humanity of the dangers indifference holds in order to encourage humans to continue to hope for a world without indifference---no pain, no horror. He establishes a critical tone for readers by using stylistic devices such as imagery, flashbacks and rhetorical questions in order to achieve his purpose that indifference is monstrous and dangerous. Wiesel’s message about the inhumanity of indifference and the importance of resistance is still relevant today.
Eventually, the victims were sent into gas chambers to be killed. Individuals allowed this to happen, but why? Learned Helpless, Social Identity theory, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are psychological concepts that prove why individuals allow human atrocities to happen.
suffer in ways not seen by the naked eye. Baldwin describes his brother’s torment, “But no one’s
There are times in life when people become their own demons whilst there are other times that life is not fair to some people. When some people face problems in life, and they cry out for help, sometimes they get that help they need. On the other hand, some victims refuse the help offered to them. In “Bartleby the Scrivener,” written by Melville Herman, the narrator shouted, “Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!” when Bartleby died; an indication of devastation from him after attempts to help Bartleby, a scrivener in his office failed and let to his death. This shows the lawyer was caring, sympathetic, regretful, and devastated at the death of Bartleby.
In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when, “How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel, 4). He was angry that innocent people were dying and getting killed. He was mad because of everything they were doing to the poor people. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Two significant themes related to inhumanity discussed in the book Night by Elie Wiesel are Loss of Faith and Disbelief.
Imagine a scenario where thoughts of harming your family, leaving your family behind, or even killing them yourself flash through your head, thoughts that if someone had to die you or your family, you would sacrifice your family. If it meant life or death, could someone kill an entire family and think nothing of it, for some people, the answer is yes. At certain points somebody might be able to muster up the willpower to cast their own family aside for survival. When in the Holocaust Elie Wiesel, the author of the memoir Night had to see betrayal all around him because people wanted to endure the entire Holocaust themselves. The people in this traumatic event didn’t care what they had to do to survive; some people would kill their family members just for an extra ration. These people would tear each other limb from limb utterly for a slightly larger chance of survival. When it comes down to it, humans have an innate cruelty within them. When faced with a life or death situation people will do anything to survive. Unfortunately, this cruelty
Simplistic complications that add up to mere first world problems can seem to be microscopic road bumps, or they can measure up to unconditional acts of evil on mankind. Megalomaniacs, who find pleasure through sadism, can only make most of those issues worse. While there is a difference between breaking a nail and dying, the potential for true malevolence is still existent in both. Although it may seem that corrupt actions cannot bring out righteousness, that is not quite the case. At the same time, closing down a chain restaurant may not sound like a significant moment to someone who has undergone unspeakable suffering, but it could be the equivalent to the apocalypse for another. In Elie Wiesel’s Night and Last Night at the Lobster