The results of one’s involvement in society’s conflicts can be devastating. The short story “Gregory” by Panos Ioannides creates a setting where the characters are involved in the 1925 revolutionary conflict between Britain and Cyprus. Consequently, the plot focuses around an executioner who has the order to kill a British captive named Gregory, who became his friend. To make matters worse, fellow soldiers inform the executioner that he must to kill Gregory or else the Headquarters will execute him for failure to obey orders. Therefore, he struggles with the decision to either please his society or stay true to his friendship with Gregory. The author emphasizes this difficulty with use of mood, stream of consciousness, foreshadowing and visual imagery. Thus, Panos Ioannides short story “Gregory” develops the idea that society’s expectations and relationships can influence one’s moral decisions and create consequences. To begin with, Ioannides exemplifies this idea with the use of mood. The executioner struggles to pull the trigger when the soldiers watch him, and he seems nervous. This is apparent when the executioner mentions, “My hand was sweating…curve of the trigger biting against my finger…soldiers were watching…” (Ioannides 142). The conflict between these characters creates an emotional impact and sets a tense mood. To add on, the tense mood establishes the social pressures the executioner faces as his peers watch him. This affects his ethical decisions since he
The Pope is the head of the Church: he represents the ultimate religious authority. However, as a Bishop of Rome, the Pope is also in command of certain secular affairs, including some military aspects. Certainly, the Pope is a link between the earthly and the divine realms. Problems arise when the imperfect world the Pope physically lives in interferes with his heavenly objectives. Taking Pope Gregory I as an example, I am going to look at his letters to analyze how he reconciled his political and spiritual goals, whether he valued one category over the other, and how he justified it.
In the Aftermath of the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta, Pericles, Athens’ general and statesmen, delivered a powerfully comforting eulogy to the polis of Athens, assuring the people that their city state is in good hands, and easing the pain of all the families and relatives of the deceased. He uses several rhetorical devices throughout his speech to gain a positive emotional appeal by his audience and makes assertions in the attempt to enhance and transform the perception of him by the audience.
Is competition allowed in a friendship? Or should two friends be just friends or just rivals. According to many studies, competition is healthy for a friendship. It allows for a group of friends to push each other and get better. But what if there was a friend who took the competition to heart and viewed the friendship more like a rivalry? In John Knowles, A Separate Peace, the protagonist, Gene Forrester, and his best friend, Finny, grow from a great friendship to a full out rivalry. Can a friendship be a rivalry?
Damon Knight’s “The Country of the Kind” follows a narrator who the audience at first knows little about, who lives in a society that is different from the norm, but is also initially left ambiguous. This sense of the unknown exists up until the narrator stumbles upon a pamphlet which opens up new viewpoints to the reader. The pamphlet serves to create three new perspectives in particular, all of which significantly shift the reader’s understanding of the story. First, it gives the reader a chance to understand the narrator and sympathize with him. Second, it offers a new perspective on society and their overall conception of what defines a utopia. The third and final perspective is that of the people who live within this society, and their interactions with the main characters. These three new perspectives prove to be formative in understanding the main character, his interactions with other characters in the story, and the role of society.
Here, Origen is implying that Gregory should the natural intelligence “the entire natural intelligence of Gregory’ intelligence should be applied to Christianity”. Origen tries to reconcile Philosophy and Theology but above all “placing Theology in a superior position as he gives all the priority to Christianity” throughout his letter. The quote from Adolf Knauber coincides with the reason for Origen’ cautioning and passionate pleading with Gregory when he implies: “that he should extract from philosophy only what is essential, to have a better understanding to interpret Scripture”. “Working from the data provided by Gregory in the Address, Adolf Knauber arrived at the significantly different picture: the students were not Christians or even
This story is told through a first person perspective as each refugee has their own secrets to keep while seeking a new life. This was a highly effective choice as it enabled the reader to “be in their shoes” and witness the brutal journey these refugees have faced. In order to show us the severity of the journey, imagery is needed since it helps the audience picture the situation as most of us cannot imagine what life at this time was. When Joana arrived at the port, as “animals roamed helplessly in the streets and people screamed out for food and lost family members” (152). This description shows how this war has torn apart everyone physically and emotionally as complete chaos unfolds. It is also an appeal to pathos as her audience would feel devastated by having to witness such a scene. This is because nobody should have no food to eat or not know whether they were safe. As a result, the description of the port upon Joana’s arrival proves that even after their journey was completed, the fight for survival was not over. Instead, it was just beginning as everyone fought for a boarding pass that one hoped would allow them to
One of the basic themes of the book is that the thought and the art of classical Athens is full of meaning for people of later generations. It is the full of meaning for nations, cultures and societies beset by broad-scale and profound social and political change and the accompanying confusion and fear produced in the minds and souls of human beings.
The shaky past of Athens, after the loss of the war against the Spartans and the overthrow of the democracy they loved and fought for caused suspicion in Socrates who had association to Critas, a bloodthirsty tyrant in an oligarchy called the “Thirty Tyrants” From a harmless town character Socrates influence on the youth of Athens was being questioned.
The short story “The Death of Dolgushov” by Isaak Babel is a gut wrenching story, at times literally, about the dilemmas of killing. Babel, a master of the short story, challenges readers’ morality by contrasting two soldiers plights. On the one hand, a soldier, Dolgushov, pleads that he has “had it (241),” meaning that he wants his comrade to kill him after being mortally wounded by machine gun fire; while on the other hand, another soldier, unnamed, cannot bring himself to kill Dolgushov. Throughout the story, war is depicted as a game until a soldier gets seriously hurt. This device, combined with the vivid imagery associated with both soldier’s plights, complicates how readers’ judge the act of killing and war in general.
A separate peace is the first fictional novel written by John Knowles and is known to be his best work. There are many themes that are shown in this novel. One of the themes deal with friendship. In the novel a separate peace Gene and Finny's friendship is known to be falling apart because of jealousy, rivalry, and one-sided trust.
The true essence of human nature is seen during times of great hardships as can be seen comparing Pericles' Funeral Oration and the plague in Thucydides', The History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides accounts for many different aspects of justice, power, and human nature through his text. The order, the style of his writing, choice of words, and relations of what he believes actually happened, allows the reader to make different inferences about the message he's trying to convey. The juxtaposition of the two stories portrays many different characteristics to investigate and analyze.
Scott Anderson exhibits the fact that Greg Ousley is a dynamic character by telling that Greg greatly matures in prison, becomes educated, and wants to work with young people upon being released. The change in Greg that first appears is his growth to maturity in prison. This is portrayed when the author states, “he occasionally turned to prison dope and moonshine for brief relief,” but Greg says, “I work across the hall from the superintendent.” Greg now working across from the superintendent exemplifies the fact that he has grown in maturity since the days of prison dope and moonshine because of the trust that the prison officials have in him. Greg becomes further dynamic by becoming an educated person. Greg pursues an advanced education as
During the days of occupation, Crete was heavily punished for their resistance. Within the first month, two thousand civilians died at the hands of their cruel invaders. John Alexander’s father was among those two thousand perished souls. John’s father, Nicholas, claimed neutrality as an American citizen, nonetheless he hid three British soldiers. When the Nazis discovered this duplicity, they did not hesitate in the disposing of Nicholas Alexander. The trespassers murdered John’s father and dispatched John to a prison camp for him to die, but John Alexander vowed vengeance and escaped his confinement.
Othello is one of the greatest plays due to its variety of character and themes. The immorality seen in Iago, the gullibility in Othello, and the desperation of Desdemona make the story. The theme of social status plays a huge role in the story. In addition, the theme of appearance versus reality also plays a huge role in how each tragedy happens. In the critical essay “Othello” it discusses the idea that the characters are cast as outsiders due to false interpretation of what is happening or what is being said. On the other hand, the piece “Othello Character Analysis” emphasizes how characterization reflects the greatness of the piece.
In reading texts that describe the mythical story of the Trojan War, it would be difficult to ignore the tragedy that the story emanates in its character’s actions and their consequences. Homer’s Iliad explores the tragedy of Achilles, whose preoccupation with glory has its tragic consequences of death and grief. It also shows the War’s resounding effect on those outside of the battlefield and the families of the warriors, as does Euripides’ Women of Troy, reflecting on family as the unforeseen victims of war. Furthermore, the play Rhesus is shown to give a more elaborated perspective of tragedy for individual characters. An examination of the Trojan War from the Trojan and Roman perspective further reveals tragedy on both sides. The gods’