Somnambulism

Through traumatic events many people lose their sanity. Some people are born insane, while others are driven to their breaking point by life experiences. In the memoir “Night” insanity is a major theme, through various characters like Mrs. Shockter and Moishe the beedle. In “Night” insanity is experienced through horrific events and continues to make itself present throughout the book.

Essay Outline Alone: Being Disconnected Solitary confinement, isolation(Appositive), which disconnects a person from relationships with others has recently being condemned as inhumane in the treatment of criminals within the prison system. Such solitary confinement leads to disruptive thinking, an inability to have a clear flow of thoughts resulting in irreversible psychological effects in as little as fifteen days. This kind of isolation amounts to psychological torture and can lead to suicide as life loses all meaning. This essay will explore the idea of extreme loneliness and isolation in three pieces of writing, Night by Elie Wiesel, I Am Legend by Robert Matheson, and The Sniper by Liam O'Flaherty. These authors explore the idea of

For this assignment, our group chose the movie “Sleeping With the Enemy” a terrifying domestic violence experience whose main characters were Laura and Martin Burney. They live in a private section of Cape Cod. Laura is a housewife who endures an abusive and controlling relationship (Ruben, 1991). Martin is her husband who maintains a belief that men control women by providing their wife’s with economic resources and that in return he believes that his wife should be obedient and submissive. Martin displays multiple signs and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, and being organized (Ruben, 1991).

This is an analysis of motivating factors in Stephen King’s novel, The Long Walk. This analysis will be connecting some of the themes and terms used in Professor Maclin’s Motivation and Emotion hybrid course to the book’s main character, Garraty and his small group of allies. Physiological needs used in the novel include themes such as the need for homeostasis. Motivation is a strong factor in the novel and will be connected to the textbook’s chapter associated with information about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Finally, this analysis will expand on psychological needs; focusing mostly on the character’s need for relatedness will be covered in relation to the Stephen King novel.

Being in scary situations, “ can be a real self-esteem boost”(92). For example, if you are in a scary maze and feel you can not get through it but do, it gives a self appreciation. Individuals can get, “high from the flight-or-flight response,”(91) which shapes individuals to be more alert and stronger. Julio Cortazar’s short story, “House Taken Over,” helps secure individual's safety by having a normal house. The narrator and the sister, Irene, live in a house together unmarried and have a family business farming. The siblings hear voices coming from the back of the house. The narrator talks to Irene saying, “I had to shut the door to the passage. They’ve taken over the back part”(40). Even though they are scared they still continue living in the house. This meaning it is obvious it is just their imagination. In the night time, it is hard for them to sleep because of the noises, but in the day they act as if there is no “they.” The setting in this story contributes to transformation by having a normal house changed by an imagination of voices.

In the novel “Crime and Punishment”, the author, Fyodor Dostoevsky gives the reader a glimpse into the mind of a tormented criminal, by his guilt of a murder. Dostoevsky’s main focal point of the novel doesn’t lie within the crime nor the punishment but within the self-conflicting battle of a man and his guilty conscience. The author portrays tone by mood manipulation and with the use of descriptive diction to better express his perspective in the story, bringing the reader into the mind of the murderer.

“It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder, that life might be long.” (Chopin 17). “"Poof!"… gave a revealing look at the victims of domestic abuse and how they wrestle with overcoming their fear and their doubts after suffering years of abusive treatment.” (Toomer 5) Loureen unlike Mrs. Mallard, witnesses her husband’s death first hand during a marital argument. Loureen goes through denial questioning whether her husband’s death. She is happy her husband is dead but also feels guilty, because she knows how a mourning wife should react, but the joy of his demise is greater,” I should be praying, I should be thinking of the burial, but all that keeps popping into my mind is what will I wear on television when I share my horrible and wonderful story with a studio audience…”, Loureen’s husband, Samuel, was physically abusive, as revealed by Florence, Loureen’s best friend and neighbor. “Did that mother***** hit you again?” (Nottage 1563) This abuse, physical by Samuel and mental by Brently, is what allows Loureen in the drama “Poof!” and Mrs. Mallard in the short story “The Story of an Hour” to have the shared freedom they feel in the release from their respective abusive relationships.

In the novel Tangerine by Edward Bloor, Erik Fisher, who is very mischievous, makes choices that later than effect Paul throughout the novel and his life through Threats and beatings. For one, Paul is told that he was visually impaired because he stared at at a solar eclipse to long, but it was Erik who made him blind. Or when Paul witnesses Erik and Arthur kill Luis Cruz, made Paul go crazy knowing that Erik’s secret is finally been revealed. This Essay will be about how Erik Fisher’s choices affect Paul throughout the novel Tangerine.

            In Oates’ short story, there is a certain type of evil present. Although it is not necessarily a physically harmful evil, it is one that is mentally harmful. After the main character Connie wakes up, she finds herself being “harassed” by a suspicious guy. However, in the story there is no proof that this is actually happening, and that it is not simply Connie’s imagination. There is an evil within everyone, and if the situation is just a dream, it shows a fragment of the evil within Connie. This short story plays on the fear which many people have of being stalked or in a situation where they cannot do anything: “I know all about you… I’ll tell you how it is, I’m always nice at first, the first time. I’ll hold you so tight you won’t think you have

Society often fail to understand and see the mental pain that individuals carry throughout their lives. Some people bear its burden, while others suffer greatly because of it, to the point of choosing self-destruction. The narrators from “The Gargoyle” (Davidson) and “Walk to Morning” (Boyden) both experience this pain that ultimately sets them on a course to a deep pit. They survive their near-deaths and later encounter unique life-changing people. As a result, they become better individuals.

Abuse can have a large psychological effect on an individual. Both Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson and The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff demonstrate that abuse leads to mental instability within the characters. This is evident through the literary criticism of the psychological lens shown in the behaviour of the characters in relation to many of Freud’s theories. Some of these theories included the Oedipus complex, the interpretation of dreams and the unconscious mind (Britannica Encyclopedia, 2014). Both authors demonstrate this through three types of abuse; substance abuse, verbal abuse and neglect.

Beyond the elements of any story, there is always a reevaluation about life or central characters. Theme always includes a statement upon the notation of abstract qualities through the embodiment of the writer. As presented in “Once Upon a Time,” the central insight to the plot suffices to the crude development of the character who overcompensates the emotion of paranoia, executed by the natural dangers of the “outside world.” Author Nadine Gordimer generalizes the concept of the psychosis based on the parallelism between the fear of the character to the fear of the mother in her dream. Notably, she illustrates the gruesome reality of human nature, that she echoes the subconscious mind to her “bedtime story.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel, Notes from the Underground Man, uses the idea of a modern dystopia by depicting a story that revolves around a distressed older man. Throughout the novel, the main character has a narcissistic belief that he is better than everyone else because of his acute sense of consciousness. His awareness however, also causes him to believe not only are people ignorant to the world around him but that they are also against him. In contrast, critics believe that the main character, the underground man, actually suffers from psychological disorders that causes him to reason this way. Psychological disorders are defined as a wide range of conditions that can affect mood, behavior and thinking, and based on his conduct in the novel, the underground man presents himself as an individual who is subjected to obsessive compulsive behavior, social repression and paranoia.

Throughout the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, emotions are the most challenging problems of all for Christopher. However, beyond the drama of Christopher’s crises involving feeling, or interaction with other people, we glimpse a more general idea – that dealing with people and feelings is difficult. Discuss in relation to the themes and characters of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Stuart Hall has posited that the concepts of individual dream states can be brought on a macroscopic scale to media text. In particular, "nightmares" of individuals, can be related to the semiological analysis of a given media text in relation to dominant ideology and culture in general. His main points in this are twofold, first is to point out that the more horrible and "nightmarish" a media scenario (i.e. story) is, the more difficult it is to de-construct the ideological markers that serve as the basis for the text. The second, and perhaps more important, is that the ideological representation in the nightmare represents a repressed wish of society and has increased threat to the dominant class, or the bourgeois.