The Dead Mind By Don Miguel Ruiz

Death is Inevitable in Louisiana. People are dying! All because of what skin color they are and having such gruesome deaths. Gaines uses the racial injustice and white supremacy in the times of the Jim Crow laws to explore how racial segregation was a major key part of life in rural Louisiana. Jefferson, a young African man who was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, gets the help and guidance from his teacher, and dies as a man.

The short story “Bullet in the Brain” by author Tobias Wolff centers around the theme of cynicism and its portrayal of how being so full of oneself and relying purely on intellect in life may end up having negative consequences. The story follows the protagonist, Anders, as he finds himself at gunpoint during a bank robbery before he is ultimately shot dead because of his haughty behavior and experiences one last memory. Though this last memory was not one of a particularly interesting moment in his life, but rather one of a time during which he was not so full of himself, reflecting on the mistakes he had made. This idea of cynicism is prominent throughout the story and is portrayed through the author’s use of figurative language and characterization.

When individuals have previously experienced a saddening, painful past, their desire to retain these past memories allows them to temporarily stay away from the hurtful reality. Their preservation of former events deludes their consciousness as they are unwilling to confront reality and wish to permanently live in a seemingly happy, satisfying illusion. In The Underpainter, Jane Urquhart suggests that when individuals are unwilling to move on from the past, their desire to maintain their past memories causes them to create a long-term irrational illusion since the reality they are currently living strongly contravenes with their illusion. As a result of their unwillingness to embrace with reality, others who unexpectedly are able to perceive

Social change comes from a societies understanding and acceptance of controversial topics, laws that enforce social norms and the politics that play a role in such change. The author Gerald Rosenberg of “The Hollow Hope” believes that the Supreme Court is able to bring about social change. Rosenburg main argument seemed to be questioning if a courts ruling that had once been accepted and had standing for several years were to be over turned, would the environment outside of the courtroom suddenly change and be accepting of their division.

Ghostly representations of “the other” imagine a social evil that has not been put to rest. These images reoccur in the Western canon, marking the persistence of slavery long after its abolition. Haunting, ghosts and skeletons in Benito Cereno act as a vehicle through which the suppressed return to the stage with a message. The ghosts carry with them all that the imperialists wanted to control, including emotions, and more precisely, the emotions of the oppressed. I argue that ghosts and skeletons comprise an area of tension in which the appearance of the “other” reveals that the dominant party’s control is incomplete. Yet, the presence is merely ghostly due to the constant policing and lack of respect for the Other. These ghosts also break through the boundaries of the dominant culture’s paradigms and identities (Harpham 17), signaling potential political crisis. This text signals the fear of the retaliation of the Other through ghostly representations by projecting on to the other, their own identities of brutality and irrationality. “Benito Cereno” by Herman Melville overturns the racist images of the colonized by relocating evil in the order of slavery. Hauntings carry the perspectives and powers of the slaves by preserving the dead amidst the living and the past amidst the present, they muddle up the concept of time and therefore defy the Western dream of complete control.

For petty issues and difficulties human do not build a defense system. People are incapable of predicting their emotional response, because they are unaware of how their brains work; therefore they choose to be self-deceptive. We humans have the tendency ignore the facts in front of us, because we are afraid of what the facts have in store for us. Gilbert displays examples of how denial can be beneficial to one’s happiness as he states, “The deception was elaborate and effective, but it was perpetrated unconsciously, and in this Osten was not unique (Gilbert

“Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and it’s conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez bases the novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, off of a true account of a murder that occurred in Sucre, Columbia. In the Columbian culture presented in this novel, he portrays the theme of honor as a fundamental value and important value that everyone is obligated to respect. Marquez does this through repetition to highlight the idea that actions taken to preserve one’s honor are never questioned, symbolism to illustrate that women are expected to stay pure until marriage in order to bring honor into their family, and the use of the double standard to emphasize the relationships between men and women and the different roles they play within society.

In “Mortal Questions," Thomas Nagel attempts to show that some human experiences are completely beyond understanding. Nagel attempts to justify that even though your life has ends, the choices one makes will not influence the end result. Nagel first clarifies his position by defining a few terms. Agent, as Nagel describes it, is defined as being in control of one’s life. Nagel states that end results are influenced by a combination of factors and that it is not in the agent’s control. In this paper, I will describe Nagels reasoning for believing that one cannot control their ends and fates. Fate is the event beyond a person’s control. Then, I will provide two reasons to object that the idea that one’s actions do not influence the end results is false.

Sigmund Freud’s theory on human behavior sectioned the mind into three parts. The three parts are the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is your instinct, the Ego is your reality, and the Superego is your morality. An instinctual reaction to fear

The story “The Body,” written by Stephen King, shows how 4 boys slowly start to forget about their childhood, but at the same time, it shows how the realities of adulthood comes down and crashes their imagination. In the story, there are parts that show that they are just kids being kids and not knowing any better, but there are also parts where they are just immature and are being ignorant to the consequences. Chris and Gordie soon learn to accept the realities of adulthood and the idea that they can’t go back now that they have reached so far. Later on in the story, it shows how they shift from that kid inside them to a wise and reliable adult. From reading the book, it is clear that the ignorant and immature side of Chris and Gordie has vanished into a more mature nature that gives those two a better opportunity.

In Asleep, by Banana Yoshimoto it is split up into three different stories: “Night and Night’s Travelers”, “Love Songs”, and Asleep”. All three of these stories are centered around sleep, dreams, death, and two women sharing love for the same single man. This plays a big part in how these women approach everyday life. The theme of death is consistently being persuaded in all three of these stories, but it shows how the characters deal with the loss differently.

The novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a journalistic account of a historical murder, is written by author Gabriel García Márquez. Continually through his career “Garcia Marquez employs journalistic writing techniques in his fiction, and particularly in Chronicle of a Death Foretold in order to produce a seemingly more authentic and credible work”( Gardener 3-4). This particular novel reads as if it is fictional. However, readers are interested to know that the account is based on a factual event. It is based on an event involving some of the authors closest friends thirty years before the novel’s date of publication. It is believed to be “A perfect integration of literature and journalism”(Gardener 1). Marquez tells readers he uses

Most people who view their lives in the objective perspective support the view that life is absurd. In his book, Mortal Questions, Thomas Nagel concentrates on this popular belief and attempts to debunk the claims for the absurdity of human existence. In this paper, I will address one of the arguments that Nagel possess against these points. In addition, I will also explain Nagel’s purpose, his beliefs on the subjective and objective points of view, and how that affects individuals when they are considering the relevancy of life. By critically evaluating his conclusions, one can see that Nagel presents a valid proposal to this controversial question, and it is a proposition that many should consider.

Denial is how we pay attention to everything today; we are constantly making unconscious choice about what to notice, and not to notice. It means when something happened and the person lies to cover up or used to escape from the truth, According to the book, Denial is the unconscious calculus that if an unpleasant reality were true, it would be too terrible, so therefore it cannot be true. Denial today is all around us, if we ignore the obvious at a certain moment because we simply don’t want to confront it, it might lead to more problems. The longer we ignore it the more serious it

A therapist instructs his patient to visualize a person that they do not particularly favor. The unfavorable person is imagined to sit on the chair in front of the patient; this is a type of technique called directed visualization. An effect like the behaviorist’s Systematic Desensitization is the objective of the activity and not the emotions of the patient. The exercise reduces the fear and avoidance of the patient towards the unpleasant experience hence; the patient is becomes less frightened of the said experience. The patient expresses his or her sentiments and thoughts towards the imagined person seated on the chair, as if the person is actually in the room. The patient talks how he or she would really talk to the person in reality; this