Nietzsche Said "Whoever Fights Monsters Should See To It

“Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main character may likewise be guilty of treachery of may betray their own values.”

“There is within me … a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction.” James Hurst. Hurst points out that when people love someone, they have the ability to hurt the ones they love, and they are also capable of doing things that can cause them to harm themselves. This idea is complicated, because people are complicated. People can be cruel as well as kind. People can do cruel things yet have caring intentions. “People are complicated. People have secrets. It doesn't make them good people or bad people.” David Zayas. In the story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the narrator, called “Brother” shows this mixed side of being human. In the story, Brother

The third conflict in the story is between lustful women and innocent women. The Duchess, who represents the lustful woman, and Piney, who represents the innocent woman, are found dead in each other's arms at the end of the story. Harte writes, “when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told them from the equal peace that dwelt upon them” (8). This event is extremely hypocritical in that a prostitute and a virginal woman, who would not typically be associated with each other, cannot be told apart from one another. This exposes the truth about death; that all are equal.

The two mirror each other greatly in their satisfaction of having their lives taken by an outside force. “I should be thine prey and gorge thine eaglets” (Manfred, Act 1, Line 32-33).

After decades of collected prose and literary works, the nature of evil has been reintroduced through bombast and pomposity words, much like those found in Macbeth and Beowulf. These two masterpieces have set the standard not only for dark literature, but also for malevolent characters. While Macbeth and Grendel may have lived hundreds of years apart and do have many differences, both are characterized by evil traits such as naive ambition, rapacious guilt, and genuine immorality. These fatalistic and malicious characters expose that any man, or creature, has the potential to ultimately become an evil and commanding oppressor, completely disregarding the essential qualities of human

One’s moral duty is often conflicted with an emotional drive or a strong passion. The drive it takes to deviate from knowing what is right and wrong can lead to unfavorable outcomes, such as suffering. Not only does this engagement establish a war within the mind, but it also hinders certain responsibilities. In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, the protagonist, Ethan, encounters a dilemma: his strong feelings for his wife’s cousin, Mattie, compels him to reconsider his devotion to Zeena. Ethan allows himself to seize feelings for Mattie, through which he disregards his moral duties to his wife, typifying that addressing a private passion over responsibility can lead to suffering.

A very common theme in classical literature is guilt, and the ways that it manifests itself in a character. Guilt is the feeling of remorse or responsibility for a crime or moral offence, whether it is real or hypothetical. Every person on Earth will have a run in with guilt, and it impacts each person in a different manner. The different impacts of guilt are strikingly visible when comparing Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In The Scarlet Letter, we see Arthur Dimmesdale’s struggle with internalized guilt, while the titular character and his lady in Macbeth continually feel guilt due to their actions that affect many people around them, but the couple does not strive to change their ways. The

The purpose of this essay is to correlate the theme of three different stories that had been read. I decided to choose the stories “Good Country People”, “Hills Like White Elephants”, and “The Storm.” I believe that the theme across these stories is to beware of the wolf in sheep clothing. In these stories, there was an antagonist that posed as a protagonist who even though their intentions may have looked well skin deep, the underlying intentions against the main character were not of good intent. I will describe certain situations in each of the three stories that show the theme I have noted.

Almost every choice a character makes weighs their conscience against possible unjust consequences. And even though all the characters go through an experience that would be emotionally painful many characters remain evil because experiencing pain does not automatically make the character great. They become nobel when they choose to “see feelingly” (4.6.164). And those devoid of conscience remain evil because in the hard times they choose not to see and not to feel. The suffering and the pain cannot change a person, it can only bring about the choice between morality and comfort, between a conscience and a guilt free

Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher in the 1800’s. His work has since influenced, impacted, and brought forth new questions for many philosophers to follow. One of Nietzsche’s famous writings Beyond Good and Evil expresses his views on society and the two different classes it holds, slave and master. He expresses his belief that the two are in warfare with one another, the strong (master) fighting for the will to power, while the weak (slave) tries to pull the master down to their level using clandestine forms of revenge. Nietzsche believed the slave morality was one that included humility, obedience, and submission, and was the destructive choice and attribute of Christianity, while the master morality was full of arrogance and pride

Earlier in the novel, he tears the incomplete female to pieces right in front of the original monster’s eyes. Likewise, Ambrosio suffocates Elvira and “[plunges the dagger] twice in the bosom of Antonia twice” out of desperation (Lewis 335). These characters are indeed the protagonists of their novels, challenging the idea that good guys equal protagonists through their motivations, characteristics, and actions.

In Otranto, Walpole challenges his societies views of modernity and transgresses social laws by introducing the theme of incest into his novel with Manfred preying of his deceased son’s betrothed, Isabella. This brings into play three defining features which became prevalent within gothic novels of the late eighteenth century: women in distress; women being threatened by powerful males; and the major theme of fear and in this example, specifically female fear. Isabella, a young, virginal woman becomes “half dead with fright” when faced with potential rape and becoming a spoiled woman at the hands of the powerful and threatening Manfred. Such suggestions, by Walpole’s age were seen as scandalous and caused moral outrage, a thread that was carried through the gothic genre. This new genre may have provided for many, an escape from the rigid world of enlightenment. It brought to them a world of imagination and allowed them to immerse themselves in a world which had been morally forbidden and they could do it from the privacy of their own homes, allowing their indulgence, and perhaps, immoral thoughts to go unnoticed, providing a way for the darkness and immoral thoughts to come alive outside of the novel. At the end of the novel however, society’s moral ideals surface as Manfred retires to a convent after the realisation of his sins and order is restored. In this way, although Walpole is exposing his readers to these ideas, he would

The Emotional versus the Rational: A Literary Analysis and Comparison between Sir Walter Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to Her Shepherd” and Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”

5. Discuss Nietzsche’s theory of “will to power” and “the innocence of becoming”. Does the hypothesis of the will to power successfully “debunk” traditional religion, morality, and philosophical claims to provide the “disinterested” or “objective” truth?

Wycherley shows how jealousy can make people lose their moral standards and commit acts with little regard for others. Harcourt’s jealousy causes him to go to extremes. He disguises himself as a parson with the intent to deceive Sparkish into believing he has been married to Alethea. Wycherley reveals Harcourt’s real plan to marry himself to Alethea to the audience through the use of irony: “nobody else / shall marry you, by heavens; I’ll die first, for I’m I should die / after it” (IV.i.148-150). Harcourt is propelled by jealousy, resorting to deceit and manipulation while holding little regard for others. Through Harcourt we witness jealousy’s corruption of society, making people superficial and selfish.