Our Mutual Friend Thesis

In the personal essay “Modern Friendships,” essayist, editor, and novelist Phillip Lopate reflects on the fluid nature of the definition of friendship. Lopate uses chronology several times within the text to accurately convey on the constantly changing perception of friendship throughout history and throughout the span of his life with comparisons consistent comparisons to romantic and familial relationships. Throughout the text, there is a heavy reliance on both ethos, appealing to the relatively intelligent, intended audience, and pathos, to establish a connection to the audience. To refine the definition of friendship, Lopate uses comparison and contrast between family, romantic relationships, and friendships throughout the text. Paragraphs

In many novels, the society created by the author is surrounded by wealth and corruption. Numerous amount of times these settings are produced based on the life in which the author lives. Charles Dickens is no different. In the midst of most of his novels, Dickens exposes the deception of Victorian England and the strict society that holds everything together. In Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, a satire is created where the basis of the novel is the mockery against money and morals. Throughout this novel, multiple symbols and depictions of the characters display the corruption of the mind that surrounds social classes in Victorian England.

I'm sure you have not only heard, but also used the famous phrase "opposites attract." The statement stands true not only in physics and chemistry, but also in relationships and friendships. We tend to be attracted to people with personalities that differ from ours, so life would be more interesting, and desire the opposite of what we have. A perfect example of this, is Sula and Nel, best friends from Toni Morrison's novel, "Sula", where the conventional ideas of good and evil are turned upside down. The two girls are like opposite sides of a magnet, strongly attracted toward one another and useless when split apart. Life puts their friendship to the test by toying with love and sex, life and death, and good and evil, eventually

Some of my favorite memories made in high school thus far are due to my involvement in the Best Buddies program. Best Buddies is offered across the United States and is a non-profit organization dedicated to ending the exclusion of people with special needs. I joined the program my freshman year and was selected my junior year of high school to be in the Best Buddies class where I get to develop a closer relationship with all of the buddies. In total there are about twenty-five special needs kids that attend my school. I am proud to attend a school that welcomes these kids and always makes sure to include them in major school events and extracurricular activities. Recently, Tyler, one of the buddies, scored a touchdown while playing with our varsity football team. This was a proud moment for the Best Buddies class because we wanted him to have this amazing experience.

Friendship has been researched with different approaches including both quantitative and qualitative types. One of these is ethnographic approach in which the researcher joins the researched group and carries out observation over certain time. This essay will evaluate its contribution to research on friendship focusing on the Corsaro’s (1985 cited in Brownlow, 2012) ethnographic study on children’s friendship. Firstly, focusing on its benefits. Secondly, moving to shortcomings. Finally, it will evaluate it in the context of social sciences’ methodology.

In Sula, Toni Morrison questions what true friendship is by putting Nel Wright and Sula Peace’s friendship to the test. Morrison tests the phrase “opposites attract” in this novel. Nel and Sula have two different personalities yet they are able to compliment each other. They are opposites in the way that they relate to other people, and to the world around them. Nel is rational and balanced; she gets married and gives in to conformity and the town’s expectations. Sula is an irrational and transient character. She follows her immediate passions, completely care free of the feelings other people might have about her. To Nel, Sula’s return to Medallion is like “getting the use of an eye back, having a cataract

Sampson, George, and Rameck could have easily followed their childhood friends into drug dealing, gangs, and prison. Like their peers, they came from poor, single parent homes in urban neighborhoods where survival, not scholastic success, has the priority. When the three boys met in a magnet high school in Newark they recognized each other as kindred spirits that wanted to overcome the incredible odds against them and reach for opportunity. They made a friendship pact, deciding together to take on the biggest challenge of their lives: attending college and then medical and dental schools. Along the way they made mistakes and faced disappointments.

In “Recitatif,” a short story by Toni Morrison, Twyla and Roberta have their ups and downs. First meeting in a shelter where they were both dropped off, the two develop a friendship. As they grow older, the two will occasionally run into each other, sometimes things would go well and other times they would not. And almost every time they do meet up, there is something mentioned about Maggie. No matter how upsetting the encounter was with Roberta, Twyla was always able to hold her ground. This goes to show that Twyla is independent, clever, and stubborn which made her a stronger person.

Dickens argues that a person should be defined by their own self, character, personality, actions, and other traits which are specifically not their clothing, which is their wealth, which is their social class. He includes several descriptions of the higher social classes, both as opposites to and comparisons with the dress of the poor, but also as examples of how such arbitrary, socially constructed class can hurt even the wealthy – that this is a universal issue that must be resolved, not just a ‘poor person’ problem.

Sixth, friend is someone who always split that what them have, friend always give you anything else that he have, when you friend get something like prize or something like that, friend never be forgotten to split to you, and the real friend never hide a something or secret, them always split to you about have now.

First off, I have decided to approach this critique with less of a rant about my misunderstanding of Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. My past critics have dragged on with complaints, though, I tried much harder in attempting to understand and analyze Book One Chapter XI-XIII as to be able to write a more analytical, rather than full-of-complaints, response.

We really appreciate your support of Best Friends and your concern about the animals in New York City’s shelters. As you may know, 9,000 individual dogs and cats are killed in America’s shelters every day. In light of this, Best Friends mission is to concentrate on increasing adoption, promoting spay-neuter programs and reducing the killing of animals in shelters in order to bring about a time when every pet has a family. We believe that this can be achieved when like-minded organizations and individuals come together to get to the very root of animal homelessness.

Through sports, school, and other extracurricular activities I have grown close, made some great friends; and I am glad to be graduating with all of you. I have made many friends over the years and have lost some which I think we all have but we know who our real friends are and they will always be there no matter the situation. We all have those awesome friends who we would share anything with and we know that they would never spill our secrets. My family has been there through it all and have been a marvelous part of my senior year.

The mutual affection one feels towards another often leads to developing feelings of trust and compassion. These strong interpersonal bonds can induce people to sacrifice their most prized possessions or even themselves for the well-being of their friends. True friends are willing to stay with each other through difficult times. However, a person whom one considers to be a loyal friend can turn out to be a parasitical opportunist driven by selfish motives.

Imagine your sole confidante, childhood playmate, personal comedian and physiologist disclosing your secrets to a stranger. Unfortunately, this stranger happens to be the person who enforce a form of punishment for the actions that were once a secret. Furthermore, this confidante is considered your friend. Does an instance of this friend disclosing your secret of immoral activities to a person of authority violate the success of the friendship? In fact, this act is not a violation of the laws of friendship. The ideas of friendship are subjective, and thus where you might think your friend’s actions are unjust, your friend is actually looking out for your best interest and security. Also, a good friend would not desire