A girl named Sophie Amundsen was on her way home when she stopped by her mailbox to get the mail, as she looked in the mailbox there was only one letter. It was unusual because there was no stamp or who’ve sent it, all it had was her name and address. Day by day, Sophie would receive mysterious letters and would tear the envelope open to read questions like: “Who are you?” ”Where does the world come from?” or letters from the unknown writer that would get her thinking long and hard because of this, the unknown letter writer had saved Sophie from the triviality of everyday existence.
The book Sophie’s World written by Jostein Gaarder shows the reader to wonder more about the world. As a child, we would think philosophically about the world but the older we got, we would philosophically think less because we got used to the world
To begin with, what are the most important things in life? There is no wrong answer to this question because your answer can be different to someone else. The important things in life to Mar’kee Alston is to “remember that health should be the most important thing to you. Take care of your body and it will take care of you. Education is in at second. Focus on developing your mind every day and learning as much as you can. Lastly, remember that things in your life could always be worse, and if you appreciate what you have in your life already, you will always be happy”
In addition, we’ve all asked ourselves or asked our parents when we were younger,
She has a scientific and above very empathic approach to the topic as she claims to be an introvert herself which I find fascinating and admiring as well. The story begins with an unremarkable suitcase full of books. What’s it all about I will reveal you now.
In a land far far away in Santa Barbara, California, there was a girl named Danielle who lived with her Paw Paw. She was very insecure and never really knew who she was, because she always followed the crowd. One day at school she gets an assignment where she has to write about herself. But she doesn’t know what to write! She is very upset; because she has never failed a school assignment in her life and she doesn’t want to start now. So she asks her best friend, Alexia, and asks for her to write it for her. Alexia said that she was sorry but she didn’t want to get in trouble.
Sophie introduces herself in the story as a nerdy, outcasted teenage girl, “I always thought of myself as a free-floating one-celled amoeba, minding my own business. The other kids at school were all parts of a larger organism. . . Not particularly noticed, definitely not appreciated, just an amoeba swimming around aimlessly” (9). Sophie feels as if she does not belong where she grew up, she has always felt like she was on the outside. Her father, a drug dealer and felon, left her mother when she was first born. Because of her extreme self-esteem issues, Sophie blames herself for her father leaving. She recalls what she believes happened when she was born, “When Mom was a teenager, I started making her belly fat. And then my dad left. And then I was born too soon. And he came back to get us.
Sure, some of us have this great confidence within ourselves about looking great, but that does not hold true for everyone. I understand the pain or disgust, or even disappointment one feels when they look in the mirror and say, “I wish I could change this or that about myself”. Although this piece is written about the author’s life, it holds meaning and connects with for many people; one only has to dig deep enough to find one. For me, it was to realize what is important in life can change, adapt and that we must explore our inner selves and find our own path in life.
Discovery of self may be a common process that can improve and deepen understanding of the individuals and the world around them. It is through these new understandings that individuals are able to both reunite with themselves and the wider society. This concept is presented clearly in the poem ‘The door’ by Miroslav Holub representing that change in self involves taking chances and opportunities and the positive consequences of change. Holub conveys change as an individual’s commitment to take new opportunities presented to them, resulting in a new perspective of life. The short story ‘Big world’ by Tim Winton reveals that self-exploration and the substantial growth and development happen through findings that contain experiences, which challenge
One of the most basic philosophical questions, as well as at the same time being the most complicated, in the novel Sophie’s World is the question, who are we? This question alone is what embarks Sophie, the main character in the novel, on a never ending journey of questions and through the world of philosophy. As it is shown in Sophie’s World, the concepts of philosophy have been in constant change all throughout history, philosophers contradicting one another in a constant battle to achieve greatness, and proceeding in a constant never ending cycle of philosopher contradicting philosopher. Because of this non-stop constant change in philosophy, Democritus, one of the earliest philosophers, would have a
Ever since Alma was an infant she adored strolling through the narrow alleys and backstreets of Paris, one street in particular always deserted, made it her favorite. Alma had the street all to herself. As she pranced around in her favorite alley, she noticed a petite chalkboard for the first time. Intrigued by the board, she inspected it and acknowledged that written on the board was the names of various people, she concluded that she would write her own name. As she scribbled her name she recognized out of the corner of her eye the store across from her had a girl her age peering through the window towards her. As she investigated deeper she noticed the doll looked eerily exactly like her. As Alma steps forward the doll dashes away. Bewildered, Alma walks toward the store. As she gets nearer the door creaks open and Alma steps toward it, however the door seals shut. Discouraged, Alma walks away, but once more, something caught her attention. Turing around, she sees the door creak open yet again, and this
But, for the first time, her daughter stares into her eyes, and her response is astounding as well as startling, considering her age. She says, “Mommy, there's a world in your eye. Mommy, where did you get that world in your eye?", and for the first time since the beginning of the piece, we experience Alice’s confidence once again (6). She realizes her self-worth, and that it is not determined by her appearance, she says, “Yes indeed, I realized, looking into the mirror. There was a world in my eye” and although she went through a good portion of her life believing that she wasn’t beautiful, or sufficient, it was all worth it because it taught her to love herself even more now (6). To end the piece, she illustrates a dream she had: it’s her old self-doubting self and another her, confident and radiating, coming together. She is once again able to speak of herself in a positive way, she states that the latter self is “beautiful, whole, and free. And she is also [her]”, which, in a way, exhibits that same attitude she had as a two-year-old (6). Twenty-seven-year-old Alice completely contradicts twelve-year-old Alice, who would “abuse [her] eye” and who did “not pray for sight” but “for beauty” (4); she now speaks of herself
I encountered a peculiar individual on the sidewalks this evening. I can recall that “ The girl stopped and looked as if she might pull back in surprise (Page 4)”. Nervousness shook my body as this mysterious girl applied a sense of mystery to herself. She asked me a variety of questions that i firmly responded too as I soon realized that she was our new neighbor. She was an odd one, she even described herself as crazy, the young ones these days.
Having read Lolita before this one, I was in a divided mind whether to bring the book home. Not that Lolita was “bad”, no chance of that, but it exerted an impression which I would love to liken to a massive dose of LSD: lovely exasperating, trippy to the max, to a certain extent very similar to a case of migraine. Unfortunately, the black butterfly on its cover knew my dilemma and blinked with me. I brought the book, and soon envisioned myself getting stuck in the same vein of chaos of words, metaphors, excessively equivocal language and bizzare monologues once again. However, to my utmost bewilderment, Laughter turned out not very elusive as I had expected. I made hardly any endeavor to finish it all in one light read, and even had time for reflective pauses during and after reading. Wow, is it me or the tale monster really that easy to tame this time?
One small act in this world, whether it is significant or not, can change the life of someone forever. Miep Gies, a woman who once went unknown to the world, once said, “But even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room.” (Goodreads 1). The woman who went unheard of by the world around her, turned on this light during the dark experiences of World War II. From being a small business secretary to saving the lives of people around her, Miep Gies made a name for herself, and that name is now well known by many. All it took was one simple action of kindness for the world to remember her name, and now we celebrate the actions Miep made and the lives she changed.
Galileo Galilei once said, ‘All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.’ Discovery has the concipient potential to change our perception about the world through unlearnt experiences and epiphanies. This process can be often triggered by unexpected discoveries which explores ideas such as transformation, challenging beliefs and realisation about the world. This help individuals to gain deepened knowledge about societal issues and their worlds. Both text composed by Robert Grey, ‘Meatworks’ and ‘Flames and Dangling Wires’ explore the key elements of discovery through concepts of reassessment. This is also reflected in Justin Giddings & Ryan Patrick Welsh’s short film, ‘This is normal’. These
Sophie revealed herself to be a character who was tormented by brutal, inescapable guilt for having lived, and she has been so thoroughly assaulted by evil that she comes to think of herself as the bearer of
In Douglas Crimp’s article the Photographic Activity of Postmodernism there are several terms that have been brought up over and over again. Presence is one of them, “presence that is only through the absence that we know to be the condition of representation.” It reminds me of one of my favorite photographers --- Francesca Woodman. She once said that “I allow you to see what you couldn’t see --- the inner force of one’s body.” She recreates a space that is simulating the relationship between the infant (the subject) and the mother’s body. The child was safe and content before the alienation, but a sense of lost and insecurity occurs after leaving the mother’s inner.
Sophie’s World has a lot of in-depth questions that are answered briefly by Sophie and how she sees the world. She is only fourteen, so she hasn’t seen a lot in her life. She knows the things around her, but not much more. The questions that she keeps receiving are getting her to think deeper into the world of philosophy. She starts to think about what she knows, but will they answer all the questions? She won’t be able to have a response to every single question because she doesn’t know everything.