Self-Destruction In The Gargoyle And Walk To Morning

The author’s narrative, ripe with horrifying descriptions, is nonetheless told with compassion appealing to the emotions of the audience

When disaster strikes, two responses exist: lose hope, or find an inner strength to rise above. “Werner” is an essay where the author, Jo Ann Beard, presents the idea of rediscovering yourself, rebuilding a life after loss, and rising above adversity. Werner, Beard’s main character, finds that the only way to truly move on after a tragedy is to take a leap into what is unfamiliar. After a fire burns down everything Werner has, he is forced to grow and become a new man, leaving his old life behind. Throughout the essay, Beard illustrates a man who faces challenges to his sense of self, and who sequentially must change and become someone new to find who he is again. Beard’s use of the third person, candid diction, and conflict resolution compose an elaborate work that focuses on the concept of becoming a new and better person after a traumatic event.

As I continued reading, the story peaked my interest with Aron being trapped with little food and water. The book became hard to put down, but gruesome at the same time, because of Aron’s descriptive writing about him cutting off his own arm with a pocket knife; which made me curl up and wince the whole time. Even though I wasn’t excited about reading a nonfiction book, I began to enjoy reading the book. When finished with the publication, the main message I got from Aron’s book is to follow what means most to an individual. The book improved my mindset of making the best of any circumstance, and to enjoy life to the

The interplay of dark and light motifs underlies the narrator’s most recent hardship. On his way home on the subway, the narrator comes across his brother’s name in a newspaper and “stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside” (Baldwin). Riding in the light of the subway car, the author makes the non-suspecting narrator subject to suffering, unguarded by the protective cloak of the outside darkness. Made vulnerable by the exposed light and people surrounding him, the narrator is hit harder by the unexpected news than if he had read it in the darkness of his private room. Under the “swinging lights,” the narrator is not prepared to cope with the troubling news. This emphasizes the importance of light as a symbol for one’s need of camouflage to properly cope with tragedy.

The Stories chosen are “The Wednesday Circle” by Sandra Birdsell and “Sky Burial” by Richard Van Camp. There are similarities between the character's feelings in the two stories. In both “The Wednesday Circle” and “Sky Burial” the characters shift between feeling helpless and feeling empowered. The characters explore the feeling of powerless and empowered throughout their stories.

For thousands of years, humans have believed in the principles of karma—that one’s future is based on their thoughts and actions of the present. Known in literature as poetic justice, it is the notion that each character gets the end they deserve. Readers appreciate seeing virtue rewarded and crime punished, as it affirms their own will to do good, and maintains that there is some great equalizing force that will reward them for their suffering. The works chosen for the Independent Study Unit are no exception—every character receives karmic consequences that are direct reflections of their actions. In Swimming Lessons, Gil Coleman, who flitted from woman to woman without a care for his wife, spends a decade heart-broken and alone. Ingrid

Seen in this light, our lack of tragedy may be partially accounted for by the turn which modern literature has taken toward the purely psychiatric view of life, or the purely sociological. If all our miseries, our indignities, are born and bred within our minds, then all

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive”(Green, 213). This seemingly simple sentence from the end of John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska is not as simple as it seems, for it is what identifies the most important theme in the book. The best way to show how this quote truly expresses the greater meaning behind our story, we have to compare the journeys of our two main characters Alaska and Pudge, or more so, their individual endings.

Throughout life, events occur and mold us. Events that hold many achievements and hardships. Events that causes us to adapt, hopefully, for the better. Events that becomes experiences, which we learn from and evolve into a wiser self. However, these inspiring words and pithy phrases are more suited for those who seek a generic answer. While we have these moments of triumph and success, we also have terrors that reside on the opposite side of the spectrum. Moments of lasting pain and trivial endeavors that leave an imprint on us unlike the moments of joy. It is through man’s isolation and pain that tell us not to talk to strangers or play with fire. Unfortunately, it is difficult to explain the feelings of pain than it is of joy. Franz Kafka explores these feelings. Franz Kafka journeys and displays the complicated genre of alienation and psychological tribulation of mankind in his stories, The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, and The Trial.

In life, every individual faces a particular struggle in which he or she cannot escape without a great deal of suffering. Though suffering takes many forms, it is still painful no matter which form it is in. As individuals endure suffering, they choose whether how they react to suffering shapes who they are as human beings. One individual by the name of H. Richard Niebuhr claims, “It is in the response to suffering that many and perhaps all men individually, and in their groups, define themselves, take on character, and develop their ethos.” I believe that Niebuhr’s assumption that people’s response to suffering is what makes them who they are is an accurate claim because the most inspiring stories of character come from individuals’ response

The story then progresses onwards to describe the daily actions and events of the characters. The narrator is able to enjoy many fine arts with his host; painting, music, and reading are just a few. The narrator has a good enough time and begins to grow closer to Roderick Usher. Through this proximity, the narrator is able to better see and understand his physical and mental capabilities as well as build a bond with the "hopeless and the frail" man. If there is one thing above all that the man fears most it is the death of his sister which is likely to come soon. This fear of her death, he says, is another reason for his terminal anxiety, and sure enough, his anxiety is soon

If you were a gargoyle on top of the Notre Dame Cathedral, you would see the Eiffel Tower and the city around it. You would see many tourists coming and going with their cameras taking pictures. You see the people rushing around to get to the places they need to go slowly disappear at night as they go to sleep. You see the romance of lovers in the city spending their days together and see the heartbreak of another. You notice how the rain can give people negative emotions and how the sun makes them go away. You will see the how small people can be the further away they are. As a gargoyle; life doesn’t sound too bad. The issue is that you can only see these things. Gargoyles are witnesses to everything, but that is all they are. They cannot

In my report I will analyse and investigate characters facing adversity throughout their life or at some point and relating them to our society we live in at this time period. The four texts I have used were Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Gandhi: Naked Ambition, a biography written by Jad Adams, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger and the oral documentary, Kevin’s Sentence by Bob Carty. Across these texts the main theme of ‘facing adversity’ was portrayed through characters, language and how the authors/directors/playwright presented their work to the audience introducing guilt building up within the plots. Interpreting the themes into our society and how we deal with situations that could make changes in our lives and showing the

a revelation of shame. In “Passing of Grandison”, the drive of the young protagonist, only for his

Suffering takes many forms explore this idea referring to three poems in detail and to at l east three poems drawn from your wider reading.