Sleeping With The Devil by Robert Baer Essay

Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” illustrates how an individual’s corruption results from their ability to resist temptation, the virtue to act generously, and the self-discipline to perform genuinely. Temptation, symbolized by the Devil and characterized by desperation in this prose, is that catalyst that forces Tom’s proverbial ball to roll. First and foremost, Tom chooses a shortcut home out of ease and lack of time that “like most shortcuts... was an ill-chosen route (280);” along his path of “smothering mud (280)” and “half-drowned, half-rotting [hemlocks and pines] (280)” –likely representative of the comeuppances of giving into temptations–Tom confronts the Devil for the first time and eventually ends up selling his soul

In the Devil’s Snare by Mary Beth Norton is a narrative describing and analyzing the Salem witch crisis and pinpointing one of the greater causes of the event. Norton's thesis is that the Salem witch trials were directly related to the two Indian wars, also known as King Phillips War and King Williams War. A significant portion of the accusers, according to Norton’s research, were in fact refugees from the Maine coast. These were people who had watched their families and neighbors be killed by the Native Americans, a people who the Puritans closely related with the devil and devil worship. With many source documents used, the book seemed very dry.

Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is

Erik Larson has organized The Devil in the White City chronologically, alternating between the construction of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the evolution of a serial killer. In doing so, Larson is able to explore the details of the fair in-depth, while keeping the interest of the reader. By using this organizational structure, Larson is also able to tell the gruesome tale of a serial killer without scaring away his audience. Overall, the pairing of these two stories helps to balance out the novel.

The events in Elisabeth Bower's 'The Demon Lover'; can be explained naturally. The story being as vague as it is leads most to concur with the title of the story and imagine that there is a supernatural aspect in the story. In the short story, Kathleen has returned to her home in London that has been abandoned during the bombing of World War II. She is not expected, yet she finds a letter addressed to her on a table in the hallway. Twenty-five years has past since the leaving of her former lover during World War I. Kathleen's lover is had been presumed dead after months of being missing in action and she has moved on. She is now married to a William Dover and living the countryside with her immediate

H.W. Brands' book was a pretty solid read. It provided a different outlook on the Cold War, as it sought to show that it was not merely an American victory over "communism" and the Russians. There was far more to the Cold War than most Americans would care to admit, but Brands puts it out there for the reader to take in.

Since the beginning of Paradise Lost, a reader can witness the dramatizing power possessed by Satan, and how he takes advantage of this very power in order to satisfy his own causes. One such property of Satan's fantastic powers is his ability to manipulate any individual into a false belief of who he really is, and therefore prevent a habitant of paradise from discovering his true purpose that is hidden behind his actions. One such example of this, and one of the most major in the epic, are the events that occur in Book IX involving Satan and Eve around the forbidden tree. Here, Satan uses, what is to Eve, excellent reasoning to convince her to eat the forbidden fruit, thereby exploiting

In David Sundstrand's essay he begins with telling the plot of the play. The main character, Abigail, her friends and a slave are caught in the woods dancing. Two of the girls freakout and passes out and doesn't wake up for some days. The townspeople begin to start rumors of it being witchcraft and in order to stop in rumors that can ruin his reputation Reverend Parris, Abigail's uncle, wants Abigail to confess to if they were doing more than dancing but Abigail keeps saying that they were only dancing. Tituba the slave was then blamed by Abigail for witchcraft and to save her life she lies and says she was doing the Devil's work and calls out people name who were with the Devil. The other girls who were with her begin to call out peoples names

The following is a summary on the short essay The Dark Night of the Soul by Richard E Miller. This short essay is an essay that has been written with a main point always in mind, that reading and writing has very powerful influences people and their imagination but, the act of reading and writing is not being utilized as much in the modern world. Richard has created an essay that proves his point by taking five very different short stories and giving each a twist that helps the reader see the power of reading. As the reader is chronologically going through the essay he or she is given many possible meanings of the essay. The meaning and the

The Devil and Daniel Webster Movie In the movie and the short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster", written by Stephen Vincent Benet, there is illustrated the battle between the forces of good and evil. Although the story allows the reader to mentally picture the scenes and the movie does the depicting for the viewer, there are several similarities in each script. Some of these similarities are the way the characters are depicted and the final scene. There are several incongruous scenes between the short story and the way the movie unfolds. The differences are the amount of time that is spent on the character development, also there are some scenes added into the movie such as the harvest dance and the reminder of the

Richard E. Miller essay “The Dark Night of the Soul” to be an interesting way to think about reading and writing in today’s world. Richard uses the violence in the world to question if our educational system is relevant to keeping us safe and whether the power literature can be used to change the tragic event that happen around us every day.

Conflict over energy resources—and the wealth and power they create—has become an increasingly prominent feature for geopolitics particularly in the Middle East . The discovery of oil in the late nineteenth century added a dimension to the region as major outside states powers employed military force to protect their newly acquired interests in the Middle East. The U.S.’s efforts to secure the flow of oil have led to ever increasing involvement in the Middle East region’s political affairs and ongoing power struggles. By the end of the twentieth century, safeguarding the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf had become one of the most important functions of the U.S. military establishment. The close relationship between the United States and the Saudi royal family was formed in the final months of World War II, when U.S. leaders sought to ensure preferential access to Saudi petroleum. The U.S. link with Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region has demonstrated to be greatly beneficial to both parties, yet it has also led to ever deepening U.S. involvement in regional politics.

John Milton’s Paradise Lost is an epic poem that describes the fall of Satan and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Satan is the protagonist of Paradise Lost and has several characteristics in which readers may identify with him. Throughout the poem, Satan is not only a tragic hero but also the key character that drives the plot and portrays many flawed human qualities. As an angel fallen from the high esteem of God and a possessor of hubris that leads to his downfall, he represents a tragic hero but also a character in which readers may identify with.

The prince is responsible for selling natural gas drilling rights to the Chinese, thus angering the Americans. Furthermore, the Prince’s father, the emir, has good relations with America and allows them to keep military personal in his country. The allowance of US troops is of specific value in comparison, notably, with Saudi Arabia. This is a major sore spot for many fundamentalists as it is viewed as a military occupation of holy grounds. Osama bin-Laden is known for brandishing this point as a major reason for hating America (Zeiden 2001). It also angers Prince Nasir, who believes in reforms to move his country away from dependence on oil and foreign nations. This is noticeably in opposition to American oil interests, so they subsequently bomb the Prince as he attempts to secure the throne away from his brother (emir content with continuing former policies). US interference in Middle Easter politics is extremely common. America, and other European nations, has supported both oppressive regimes and military coups to secure oil interests (Zunes; Pitz, Lecture Modern Iran). In doing so, they have blocked the path to democracy and self-determination for many nations.

According to Ruzaliev (2004), “A few weeks later, a meeting took place in Karachi between the members of Islamic organizations from Pakistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestine, Kashmir, Uzbekistan, and Chechnia. They agreed to raise two million dollars to support the Holy Jihad against Karimov’s regime (para. 9).”