King Essays : King Saul

In “Happy Endings,” Margaret Atwood manipulates literary techniques to emphasize how each story can have different plots yet end up with the same ending. She makes the case that, in every ending, the characters finish having a happy ending and “eventually they die” (paragraph 4). She infers that it is the contents between the beginning, and the end that bring interest and challenge to the characters, while the beginnings are more fun. The “true connoisseurs” is an important element because it is what makes up the plot (paragraph 21). The six scenarios of “Happy Endings” introduce differences in the beginning and the middle of the plot but result in the same ending. The plot in each scenario focuses on the significance of understanding how

Once he is put into a residential school, all that he loves and cares for is deemed irrelevant. Furthermore, the psychological pain that is inflicted upon Saul is startlingly made clear, and at such a young age, Saul already has emotional wounds that will remain till the end of his life. When everything that matters to Saul disappears, he describes “[t]he tearing away of the bush and my people were like ripped flesh in my belly. Every time I moved or was forced to speak, it roared its incredible pain. “ (48) Saul struggles to find a way to deal with his problems in a healthy manner. His childhood is ripped away from him far too soon, and he no longer knows what to believe in. In addition, Saul turns to isolation from the mental scars at his stay in St. Jeromes because he believes this is an effective way to cope with the trauma that he endures. Saul knows what he is doing to himself, and explains that “I wasn’t a large boy and I

The ends of the story are very different from each other in quite a few ways. Let just say there is a good ending in one story and a bad ending in another. Lets go deeper

He shows he is weak and not ready to lead. (1 Samuel 9:21). Saul even hides when he is supposed to show himself to the Israelites as the chosen King (1 Samuel 11: 22). Although Saul knows that he cannot lead, he has no choice, he has to follow the Lord’s order. At last, God realizes that Saul was indeed not a leader-type person and chooses another person. God must have known that people are not forced to be leaders, but they themselves should be aware of the ability to be leaders.

When Saul abandons his passion for hockey, he relies on alcohol to solve his problems and withstand the discrimination and constant racism from the workers. For instance, Saul admits that “The drink had [him] snared. [he] spoke less and drank more, and [he] became the Indian again; drunken, drooling and reeling, a caricature everyone sought to avoid” (181). To escape the abuse of harsh racist comments, Saul becomes dependant on alcohol and isolation to solve his problems and forget his past, this prevents him from showing any interest in the future and affects his mental health in a negative way, which also leads to addiction and physical body damage. Secondly, discrimination changes Saul’s personality from gentle to savage and alone.To illustrate, Saul “sat alone in that territory of emptiness. [He] was not welcome even among [his] own. Finally it changed the game for [him]. If they wanted [him] to be a savage, that’s what [he] would give them” (164). Discrimination causes Saul’s behavior to change, after many cases of ignorance and negligence, he dwells into a deeper stage of depression due to loss of his only escape from discrimination which affects his lifestyle by causing him to act more violent, lose friends and drive into depression and drinking. Lastly, discrimination also becomes an act of rape in Saul’s life, where his innocence is

In all honesty, Saul has suffered a great deal of pain. However, Saul changes dramatically into a new person by the end of the novel. From the beginning of Indian Horse, Saul has made some decisions that caused his life to tumble over. On the other hand, Saul looks back to his past, and he is able to invision all the mistakes he has made. By this, he finally realizes the choices he has made and wishes to fix them.

Saul had been an alcoholic for many years when he met Ervin Sift in a bar. Saul instantly connected with Erv who decided to help Saul sober up and give him a place to live and work (183-184). Erv’s kindness towards Saul made an impact since for many years he had been alone with no one to care for him. After a while, Erv became similar to family to Saul since “he offered [him] security, friendship and the first home [Saul’s] had in a long time” (186). Erv impact on Saul kept him sober and prepared him for the rest of his life. Saul valued his relationship with Erv but still felt he was unable to truly connect with him. In fact, “[t]here was a part of me that desperately wanted to close the gap I felt between myself and other people. But there was a bigger part of that I could never understand” (187). At this point, Saul still had not realized that he was repressing memories about being raped by Father Gustav Leboutilier and because of this was not able to be true friends with him. Saul’s relationship with Erv was the closest he had been to family for a long time, however, there was still a barrier keeping them apart. Saul was able to move past this barrier in his relationship with the

Eventually, in my early teens, I took up reading books such as The Odyssey by Homer, and various other works relating to the Trojan War. As is typical with many Greek stories, The Odyssey presented me with a hero I could look up to, but I was dealt my first shock when I realized that not all books have a happy ending. Quite the contrary in most Greek literature. While the Odyssey does have a fairly happy ending, other books on the Trojan War presented a much different picture. Achilles, another one of my heroes at the time, dies, and the city of Troy is sacked. I wasn’t sure how to take these bizarre endings. I say bizarre because as a kid in this day and age, I was presented with stories that always ended happily. The guy always got the girl. The hero always saved the day. The criminal was always caught. This was quite out of the ordinary in my world. I began to realize that the stories and movies I had previously always been presented, were in no way a honest view of reality. Bad things did happen, and that was life. Instead of turning away from this reality, I embraced it, realizing that while the stories themselves may not be true, the reality of the situations faced in them were.

Although Saul met all qualifications of what the ideal king should resemble, he lacked the most important trait, obedience to God. Saul was identical to the rest of the people of Israel and wanted to reign his way. Saul’s disobedience caused his fall, “For example, his usurpation of priestly functions while awaiting Samuel to offer the sacrifices at Gilgal before the battle with the Philistines caused God to vow that he would remove the kingdom from Saul (Hindson 165).” God rejected Saul as king because of his blatant disobedience of God’s commands, and God chose David as the forthcoming king.

First, foreseeing the day that Israel would have a king, expressed in Deuteronomy are instructions for such a time. At this point it should be noted that the idea of Israel having a king, began in the mind of God. Contrary to what some believe about the idea of kinship and God’s supposed disdain for it, Howard mentions the fact that “God has spoken of kings to Abraham from the beginning (Gen. 17:6, 16; 35:11)”; furthermore, he noted that the problem with anointing a king was intention of the people to be like the nations

The book of 1 Samuel, a part of the Old Testament, sparks the dawn of the United Kingdom of Israel by telling of its first king, Saul. Samuel is one of the first talked about pre-literary prophets in the bible perhaps because he anointed the first king of the United Kingdom. He is a prophet by definition because he possessed the ability to converse with the almighty Yahweh. Samuel and Saul are key players to the rise of the kingdom but Saul runs into trouble and disobeys God, which leads him to his own inevitable demise.

The nation of Israel was set apart as holy to the LORD. But they When the children of Israel demanded a king, they did so to be like the other nations. The first three kings were Saul, (outwardly tall, handsome and strong—a seemingly good choice for a king, but inwardly arrogant, proud and unrepentant—not God’s choice), David (a man after God’s own heart who repented of his sins and as such was God’s choice), and Solomon (the wisest man who ever lived, but because of covenant disobedience became the catalyst for the division and ultimate exile of Israel.

King David, a member of the tribe of Judah was chosen by God to lead his people. As everyone knows, he proved by his wise choices to be a very effective leader. As a great military strategist David united the tribes and extended the national boundaries so that in his time Israel enjoyed a greater fraction of

Atwood uses “Happy Endings” in identifying and explaining the type of ending fictional stories should have and why. Works of fiction should have a happy ending which Atwood terms appealing to our ethical nature and therefore moral. Atwood provides a number of stories that implies different endings. However, the ending in the first story is referred in all other stories as the befitting ending. Atwood acknowledges the desires of works of fiction to bring out creativity by bring out intensity and passion, but this is only possible in the introduction and the body of a fictional story. All fictional stories have to end in the same way, a way that appeals to the human

In The Bible there are multiple ideal societies which are presented, each denoted by the God's approval of that society and its leader. One of these societies is that portrayed in the story of Saul. In this story Samuel, a prophet of God, is given the task of revealing Saul, the ruler who is specified