Psychoplasticity In The Gargoyle And Vigil

People can change in substantial ways when they encounter distressing events. Views and personalities can change as new matters come to light and are experienced. In books, many authors can expertly show a character’s development and change. A prime example of this is in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Reverend Hale, a character in The Crucible, undergoes a dramatic and significant character development and change throughout the plot, which consists of being humbled because of new information and events, which changes him as a person to one who is more aware and logical.

I was reading Ellen Hopkins’, Fallout, the third and final book of the Crank series. Although the first book Crank was my favorite of the series, Fallout held up its own for a solid finish. Hopkins took a chance by changing the main character narratives to relate to her children instead of Kristina Snow. This allowed for a noteworthy story by itself. The title could not be more appropriate for this book, considering the state of the characters’ lives. This widely successful series takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of the harsh reality that is addiction to crystal meth and how it obliterates Kristina’s life. Fallout takes a different route from the previous books, Crank and Glass. Instead of telling the story in the view of Kristina Snow, star of before mentioned books and user of crystal meth, it is in the point of view in her three oldest kids Hunter, Autumn, and Summer.

It’s why she wrote about never seeing the things and places and people she loved again. And why she imagined coming back dead” (361). Grace waited around for Chester, losing

The plot of the story is Bromden’s worldview is subjugated by his fear of what he calls the Combine, a huge conglomeration that controls society and forces people into conformity. Bromden pretends to be deaf and dumb and tries to go unnoticed, even though he is six feet seven inches tall. The all-male mental patients are divided into Acutes, who can be cured, and Chronics, who couldn’t be cured. They are controlled by Nurse Ratched, a former army nurse who runs the ward with harsh, mechanical precision. Randle McMurphy arrives as a transfer from the work farm; Bromden senses that something is different about him. McMurphy swaggers into the ward and introduces himself as a gambling man. Bromden suffocates McMurphy in his bed, enabling him to die with some dignity rather than live as a symbol of Ratched’s power. Bromden, having improved his immense strength that he had thought was gone during his time in the mental ward, but escapes from the hospital by breaking through a window.

"All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal."—Flannery O'Connor.

Even though she writes this in the book due to peer pressure, she realizes that her actions are wrong and her superego makes her feel bad for behaving in this manner.

The superego is the morality principle where a person feels responsible towards society. It also blocks out aggression and can cause guilt. Greg operated in his superego when he returned home, “He thought ahead of what his father would say and wondered if he should tell him about Lemon Brown. He thought about it until he reached his stoop, and decided against it,” (Myers 8). He didn’t want to tell his father about Lemon Brown because he didn’t want to get in even more trouble or another lecture, “Greg pushed the button over the bell marked Ridley, thought of the lecture he knew his father would give him, and smiled,”

“All of us make mistakes. The key is to acknowledge them, learn, and move on. The real sin is ignoring mistakes, or worse, seeking to hide them. ”(Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank). The novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells a story about a 17th century Puritan life in Boston, Massachusetts during 1642 to 1649.

Jack London wrote The call of the Wild in 1900 and had it published 1905. The main character, Buck a St Bernard living the good life until he gets stolen and taken to Alaska. After that he is made a sled-dog who is sometimes beaten and starved. But in the end this is a transformation physically and mentally. The story takes place in Miami, Florida for a part of the story until he is stolen and taken to a remote part of Alaska.

Once this girl started with the drugs, she could not stop. As soon as she tried the first drug, it lead to all of the other drugs and things that she did. Her first time doing the drug was an accident, and she did not know, but she made the wrong choice in continuing to do them. She said it gave her a feeling of belonging and love that she had never felt before. If her parents or her close friends had paid more attention to her, then some of the events that happened would not have happened. Her heavy drug use lead to her runaway from home to the streets, involvement in crime, her prostitution, and her visit to the insane asylum. She found a "best friend" (Chris) - one that would give her drugs - and they decided to runaway and leave their family and friends to start their own shop in San Francisco. They thought they could not handle their parents telling them what is right and what is wrong, but that is what they needed to hear. They were naive in thinking they could live their lives alone without any rules or any authority.

No matter what millennium, century, or decade one looks at, one will be able to find at least one person with evil intentions for the world. These evil intentions may at first not be seen as evil intentions, but instead they may seem as if they are great ideas for the countries future. This was the case for Adolf Hitler who took advantage of his countries economical depression to rise to power. Leaders such as King Richard III have always had evil intentions because King Richard III wanted to take over the thrown by any means necessary. King Richard III and Adolf Hitler are two very similar leaders who ascended to the top of their respected countries.

self. The clearest examples of this struggle are shown in the two victims of suicide, Dale Harding and Billy Bibbit. Before their deaths, both characters felt a sense of uneasiness and discomfort in the psychiatric ward. Though they attempt to seem impassive and mentally stable, the men face issues within themselves and their reasons for being in the ward. Harding reveals that his issue within himself concerns his sexuality. He mentions that he feels “inferior” when “looking at the bosom” of his own wife. He also mentions comments about homosexuality, which leads readers to understand that he is in the psychiatric ward due to his sexuality. Due to these internal struggles, Harding decides to drown himself in the ward’s pool. Bibbit, on the other hand, struggles with his self-esteem. He explains that his stutter does not give him much confidence and that he has struggled to ever have relations with a woman. At the end of the story, McMurphy hires Bibbit a prostitute in hopes of gaining money and improving Bibbit’s attitude. When Bibbit is caught with the prostitute by Mrs. Ratched, his anxiety reaches a peak point. Upon being sent to the doctor’s office after being scolded, Bibbit decides to slit his own throat to avoid conflict with the ward and his mother. The internal struggle and violent responses to it show the more serious, life-or-death conflicts in the

During the summer of 1967, the area in San Francisco was a magnet for individuals looking for drugs. Joan hung out with runaways and acidheads. She met a different array of people such as, dealers to poets. One thing she did notice is that there were several children. They were as young a five years old taking acid. While at Haights she blended into the scene. The readers of the article that she is writing gave them the sense that she was putting herself at risk reporting this story. As she wrote what was happening there she was afraid that she might get sucked up into the Haight abyss and become a lost soul.

His view is to let readers realize that life is a roller coaster that many things can inexplicably happen, though sometimes it seemed life was going well. For instance, the story claims, "I had been a good life till now. There had been work, fatherhood, family. The man had been lucky and happy...The child had been hit by a car and he was in the hospital..."(Carver, 1989, p. 49). This subtle contrast expressed herein is to make author's message abundantly clear, and perfectly articulate to me what is the author's view: Life is unpredictable, and it has ups and downs along the