Silence, By Shusaku Endo

Throughout history there has been 450 school shootings in America. Since 1840, there has only been eight school shootings in Alabama. The book I read was about a school shooting in Alabama, in a small high town called Opportunity. This book was called, This Is Where It Ends. Marieke Nijkamp is the author of this book, and published it January 5th, 2016.

The book Last Man Out by Mike Lupica the boy in the book (Tommy) has many memory moments/flashbacks about his dad, the memory shows us about the conflict he has with his father and having to deal with him being gone.

Listening is ‘Not an attempt to understand something that is being said’ but ‘Just an attention to the activity of sounds’

In the Pulitzer Prize winning civil war novel Killer Angels, Michael Shaara covers five days of the historic battle between the Northern and Southern United States at Gettysburg. Both the North and the South fought for freedom, although they did not have equivalent definitions of freedom. The North and the South were unwavering in their beliefs and their hope for a better United States, but what the two butted heads the most on was slavery. The South was a primarily agrarian region which relied heavily on the agriculture of crops like cotton and sugarcane, both of which required intense manual labor, unlike the North who was more so industrialized; however, as William Preston said, it was not cotton that was “the south’s king” but it was slavery that made them so prosperous. The South relied on slavery because having many workers to tend to these cash crops without having to pay them saved farmers and plantation owner’s money that they could use to buy more slaves that put out more work leading to more land for more crops, or to have more money to pay their taxes. Many Southerners like William Preston thought that owning other people was their divine right as white men. The Civil War was started over the North and South’s conflicting views on whether they had the “civil” right to own or not own slaves. The Northern and Southern states developed themselves much differently than one another because of their agrarian versus industrialized economy. As the states developed they

Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther was an astounding book. Granted, it was a bit depressing, but it was a great book because I could relate so closely to the author. The trial of a loved one going through cancer is something I can relate to. Fortunately, my story turns out a little bit better than Johnny’s did.

In the novel, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, the main character, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, is an immigrant of Syria who stays in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and is arrested due to the suspicion of looting, but really is arrested because of his race and how he looks. Zeitoun’s faith and loyalty to his community and home is tested through the many obstacles of Hurricane Katrina and including his religion, racism, and his very own dignity. The author, Dave Eggers who is also the speaker in novel, proves all examples of Zeitoun’s challenges credibly in the text.

Throughout history, many different cultures illustrate their history and their beliefs through various artistic objects that they create. These artifacts allow historians to better gage their lifestyle, their beliefs, and how their society operated. One example of this is the “Drum Beater” sculpting created by Karoo Ashevak that is especially famous for its illustrations of the shamans and the spirits. In this research paper, Karoo Ashevak’s “drum beater” will be dissected and analysed; from the Inuit culture itself, to the physical features of the sculpting, as well as the significance and symbolism of the sculpting as it relates to the Inuit culture.

Part One: In the documentary "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande talks about the death of patients and how it 's a surprise to a large amount of the patients. He also explains the fear in the medical field, and as a doctor your suppose to help people and cure them, that you 're supposed to give them a better shot and if it later doesn 't go they way you expected,the doctors start to tell themselves what went wrong or what happen everything was going so well. Gawande talks about how he wants to learn more about how to communicate with patients and telling them that they have a certain weeks, days or months left. For example, He talks about one of his patients that he had, her name was Sarah and had stage 4 lung cancer was young and just had a

In Being Mortal, Atul Gawande painted a little depressing picture of the realities faced by the elderly in the US nowadays: declining health status, economic insecurity, and loss of independence. It seems once the older people move into nursing homes or assisted living facilities, they lose autonomy, dignity and privacy as the institutions are not able to fully individualize care. Even though the situation has been improving, it still shocks me to see how unhappy some of the elderly are in these circumstances. Realizing senior care facilities often fail to address all aspects of well-being, I would like to explore the issues of promoting both objective and subjective component in quality of care for the older people.

Many of Rodrigues’s actions are both cowardly and selfish. When he arrives in Japan, he is traveling with Father Garrpe, a friend and colleague. Rodrigues actually watches Garrpe sacrifice his own life while attempting to save Japanese that are being put to death, yet does nothing to help. The closest Rodrigues comes to embodying Christian values during that particular situation is in this quote, where he at least acknowledges that his actions aren’t in line with what he preaches: “His pity for them had been overwhelming, but pity was not action. It was not love. Pity, like passion, was no more than a kind of instinct” (Endo

Live your life to its fullest, if I had to mention one thing I learned from Mary Oliver 's beautiful poem, "When Death Comes", that would be it. Specifically not letting time pass you by, or letting things like anxiety or anger control your life. The comparisons to death also help with understanding the magnitude of our mortality, and the importance of not taking each and every day for granted. With many fitting and unique metaphors I found it easy to be engaged with the poem. This leads also to a lot of relevant and surprising imagery, employing a more detailed vantage point for the reader. In "When Death Comes", Mary Oliver uses persona, metaphor, and imagery to speak not only of death, but more specifically living life to its fullest before death.

The novel Never Let Me Go, written by Kazuo Ishiguro, is set in a capitalistic, dystopian society in which scientific advancements have greatly relieved society of their medical concerns, all the while, severely damaged their integrity. The exploitation of human clones for the sole purpose of implementing a sufficient number of organs for society has resulted in a change in their ethics, as well as their ego. In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro uses characters to illuminate corruption in society, illustrating that greed in the pursuit of progress can negatively alter the mindset of society. By living in a capitalistic environment, one will develop a fatalist mentality in an attempt to come to terms with society and their

Throughout the novel Silence by Endo Shusaku, the letters by Sebastian Rodrigues show the experience of a foreign priest in Japan as he is trying to do is rightful duty as priest while risking his life. This period, Edo Japan, prohibited practice of Christianity and included the death of those caught in practice. Rodrigues does secret baptisms and listens to people’s confessions but constantly in fear of being discovered. Silence was satisfying as a historical novel because the themes portrayed throughout Rodrigues journey in Japan.

In San Manuel Bueno, Martyr, Miguel de Unamuno describes the tragic tale of a priest who finds himself unable to believe the messages that he shares with his congregation. He hides this disbelief from the people and lives in a sort of martyrdom, unable to break the charade he built in the village as a saintly figure. He recognizes his own suffering from his life without faith and devotes his life to withholding his truth from the masses in order to allow them to live. To him, their faith acts as a protector from the cruel nature of the world and the comfort of belief is more valuable than the truth.

Sylvester Stallone once said, “There is a natural law of karma that vindictive people who go out their way to hurt others will end up broke and alone.” In the play, Sotoba Komachi, written by Kwa’nami Kiyotsugu, the main character, Komachi, experiences such karma. Sotoba Komachi is based on a Japanese legend, about Komachi, a beautiful maiden with many lovers and a cruel heart. Komachi is pursued by a man named Shii no Shosho who came from far. Instead of accepting or declining is request Komachi states she would only accept him if he visits her for a hundred nights. Shosho visits her through rain, snow, wind, and storm for all night but one and on the final night Shosho dies. Although the play is short in writing, the lesson to be learned