“Change the channels for an hour or two”
Sloth (or Acedia), one of the 7 deadly sins in the Christian tradition, can be generally defined as physically and emotionally shirking one’s duties. Henry Fairlie, in “The Seven Deadly Sins Today”, says that Sloth is “a state of dejection” that gives rise to “sluggishness…a poisoning of the will” (Fairlie 113). It is this very state that Green Day describes so aptly in their debut single “Longview”.
Longview describes the life of the slothful person. In the first few lines the slothful person admits to himself, “I’m fucking lazy” (Armstrong). This general attitude pervades the entire song and the worst part of the slothful person in “Longview” is that he understands this is a dejected state of his own making. He is in “a house with unlocked doors” but knows that he has essentially “locked the door to my own cell” (Armstrong). This is consistent with Fairlie’s understanding of the Christian sin. In the same way the slothful person in the song locks himself away, so does sloth
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Failing to love a good according to its proper measures and failing to carry out corresponding obligations (sloth) can lead a person, as it does in the song, to seek another distraction, one that perhaps does not require anything of them. Instead of looking for a job, as his mother requests, the slothful person in “Longview” smokes, gets high, and masturbates. Getting high (in my experience at least) tends to contribute to a state of slothfulness and encourages the shirking of one’s obligations. The masturbation part however, seems to fall under another deadly sin, the sin of lust. Seeking sexual pleasures in the wrong sort of way and improperly loving persons as the man in “Longview” is doing appears to be a symptom of lust. In this way “Longview” shows the relation between sloth and lust and how easily one can lead to
Analytical Essay In the poem “Who Understands Me,But Me” by Jimmy Santiago Baca talks about his experiences and how he felt while he was in prison. This was also about how being closed up in a prison feels like everything you thought you’d always have is now gone. But at the end things will start having its positive ending.
People go into many things to try to escape their life. Some people start eating a lot, while other stop. Some people go into drugs, while others start drinking. Some people go into depression, while others are allured to take high risk actions. Maybe Christopher McCandless took this action because his relationship with his dad was not the best. Krakauer associated his relationship with his father to McCandless and his dad. “Like McCandless, figures of male authority aroused in me a confusing medley of corked fury and hunger to please” (Krakauer 134). Krakauer feels the pressure to succeed and the desire to rebel, because his father constantly pushed him to perfection, like McCandless father. Chris could no longer deal with his life and spitefully left everything he knew for his dad’s high expectations. “I got into my head to climb a mountain called the Devils Thumb” (Krakauer 134). To show his father he can do it, he revealed in the book his thought processes during the climb. At the end he came to the conclusion that his method of thinking could have killed him something that ultimately happened to McCandless. To sum it up, by comparing his own and other people’s experiences the author Jon Krakauer appeal to pathos to give a little perspective on why Chris McCandless is not a young foolish kid as several people assume he is.
The book Bless The Beasts and The Children is an adventure fiction book. Adventure fiction means “a genre of fiction in which an adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger” The book was originally published in 1970, and was written by Glendon Swarthout.
The first two lines are a double meaning. “Whiskey on your breath” could mean that the father was an alcoholic, or that he had just a sip of whiskey. Even a small sip of whiskey can make any child dizzy because the smell of alcohol is strong. These lines create a double meaning and a sense of uneasiness in their relationship. In the second two lines, ambiguity arises in the meaning behind the words. A sense of fun is created when the son is waltzing with his father, but the boy is only tall enough to reach his father’s belt buckle. The father might be having a fun time with his son, but because he is much bigger than his son, the interactions seem a bit overwhelming. The words “hung on like death” indicate that the game the father and the
In the brighter spectrum of Mr. Chris McCandless, is his deep and intellectual personality, shining through on most every occasion with cynical value or an interesting opinion every now and then. In Chris’s deep scholarly thought he decides to give up many things for his own self righteousness in attemp to make himself free of any evil or distraction as well as anything that may hold him down. As a younger boy in high school he proved his good Samaritan self by spending weekends taking to the the streets, spending nights with prostitutes, the homeless, and the addicts, feeding them and experiencing a little of what they felt. As I mentioned before he gave up what he thought would ruin his dreams and soil his life, he rid his life of luxury and wealth along with long-term relationships with people. As one of the things that he had apparently given up was the desire of sex and all of it’s evils, and proclaimed that his need was much to great for something so petty. Truly I believe traveling as a child with his family engineered a mind set within Chris that made him feel as if familiarity was just a weight holding him down from the flight toward his dreams. He also thought that being lost in such a superficial and trivial society could help no one
The father is a drunken man who abuses his son, but the son accepts his father’s actions and continues to seek love from him. The boy would “waltz” with his father while the mother watched with fear, and with “every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head…” (Lines 11-13). The father drunkenly abused his son, but the son who “...hung on like death...Still clinging to your shirt” (Lines 3 and 16) was longing to be loved. The tone of this poem is violent and harsh due to the unhealthy relationship between father and
Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer (Norman Mailer). In “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer tells the story of Chris McCandless. McCandless came from a loving family consisting of his father Walter, mother Billie, younger sister Carnie, and family dog Buck. At a young age McCandless liked to keep to himself and was a little bit antisocial. However he still got along well with all the other kids in school, he had many friends and almost all the kids loved him.
"They turn casually to look at you, distracted, and get a mild distracted surprise, you're gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were fucking is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.(pg.263)" In Minot's story Lust you are play by play given the sequential events of a fifteen year old girls sex life. As portrayed by her thoughts after sex in this passage the girl is overly casual about the act of sex and years ahead of her time in her awareness of her actions. Minot's unique way of revealing to the reader the wild excursions done by this young promiscuous adolescent proves that she devalues the sacred act of sex. Furthermore, the manner in which the author illustrates to the reader these acts symbolizes the
In his article “The Neglect of the Intellect: Sloth,” Mortimer J. Adler asserts that the disuse of a person’s intellect is a moral injustice. Adler coins the term “sloth” to describe the people committing this moral crime. He believes that people should use their intellectual abilities for their own personal pleasure rather than for economic or political gain. Adler employs an aggressive tone when describing the abuse of the intellect, and appeals to the reader’s emotion when portraying intellect as a way the only way to live a morally good life. Adler’s purpose is to convince his readers that intellect should be used solely for the purpose of increasing knowledge. While Adler’s article gives a reasonably convincing argument about learning for your own well-being, he fails to support his claims, baffles his readers with the overuse of intelligent sounding words, and neglects to explain why you should be intellectual just for the sake of it.
Hozier’s 2015 song “Work Song” suggests that true love comes from hard work, devotion, and sense of faith. The author creates a story that illustrates how someone who is miserable and at his lowest point, can find love and finally have a greater purpose. Hozier’s song encourages his listeners by showing them that true love can make someone strive to be better. As the song progresses, rhythm, the juxtaposition an image, and careful diction convey that above all, love is the root of happiness, but it is not achieved without laborious work.
Hozier’s 2015 song “Work Song” suggests that true love comes from hard work, devotion, and sense of faith. The author creates a story that illustrates how someone who is miserable and at his lowest point can find love and finally have a greater purpose. Hozier’s song encourages his listeners by showing them that true love can make someone strive to be better. As the song progresses, rhythm, the juxtaposition of images, and careful diction convey that above all, love is the root of happiness, but it is not achieved without laborious work.
Most people would not associate a joyous event and death. For instance, when someone is on a roller coaster, they hang on tight out of fear. The second stanza gives the details of how the father was knocking over pans and shelves. No fun event would require continuous destruction to the house. The reader also sees the mother in a seemingly helpless state as the father continues to damage the house. She seems to be in a state of dismay as her husband carries on his behavior. Her frown shows that his actions sadden her but she is powerless to stop him. One would think that a smile would be more appropriate. This supports the abuse aspect because she would not be frowning if it was a joyous exchange between the son and father.
Relating to the quote, it shows how he can not move on because of his behavior from lack of confidence. Another example of lack of confidence, “I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” The man is comparing himself to a crab due to feeling invisible to the world. The man explains how he prefers to be an animal than a human being because no one shows him love as a human being. Disorder of depression caused his feelings to be full of sadness of not having anyone. The man’s feelings are causing him to suffer due to unknown world of emptiness he imagines.
This captures the frustration and the regret of having to deal with the situation in a Jeckle and Hyde sort of way, in that person one is very calm and although frustrated manages to turn to religion for help whereas in the second part of the poem they rebel against religion and it’s teachings and have corrupt thoughts and feelings.
The second stanza addresses the helplessness of Reuben in his personal life and the inevitability of his wife’s passing.