The Garden Of Earthly Delights By Hieronymus Bosch

Gorgeous women, vengeful gods, helpful gods, numerous riches, ugly monsters, and a hero with his crew. The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Allen Mandelbaum, tells of the hero Odysseus' journey home from Troy. At his home in Ithaca, Odysseus' estate and wife, Penelope, have being overtaken by suitors. Odysseus' son, Telemachus, begins a journey to discover news of his father. After being away from home for numerous years, Odysseus' main goal is to reach home and regain his wife and estate. Along the way Odysseus learns many lessons about life as he grows from an immature lout to a humble, mature man.

In “The Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, a man named Robert is coming to spend the night at the narrator’s house. Robert is a friend of the narrator’s wife who happens to be blind, which doesn’t sit well with the narrator. Robert and his wife have a ten year relationship which started with her working for him. Since then they’ve stayed in contact by sending audiotapes to each other. When Robert reaches the house, the narrator is a bit uncomfortable. The first reason being because the man is blind, and secondly he’s not really sure what to say to a man who has a past with his wife. Soon after, the narrator sees that Robert isn’t initially what he thought the man would be like. Robert’s suggestion for the narrator to close his eyes while drawing the cathedral creates a different perspective for him, which allows him to realize it is he who is limited and cannot see, not Robert.

In almost every story there is a meaning, whether that meaning is obvious or not is up to the readers’ interpretations. In some stories, that meaning hides behind a character, how that person acts, thinks, or express themselves and how they change throughout resembling growth. In Raymond Carver’s “The Cathedral”, the unnamed husband narrators the tale of his wife’s old blind friend Robert coming to visit after not seeing each other for years. They had remained in contact through audiotapes, but the husband seems to not understand the significance of their relationship, showing distaste with the visit for the majority of the story, due to his uncomfortableness. In this story, the writer displays his tale and its morals; by using the narration of the husband; Carver shows that there comes to be more meaning behind this bitter man that meets the eye, which argues the fact that perhaps this unlikable narrator is truly the antihero.

Some people believe that lies will always be bitter in the end, no matter how sweet you make them in the beginning. In William Gass’ The Tunnel, he expounds the validity of this belief by taking the reader on an emotionally evolving journey, as he recounts the self-realization of a young boy, who’s frightening lie unravels in front of not only his own eyes, but also the readers. Gass successfully enriches this story with striking imagery, symbolism, and comparisons; exposing how no matter how sweet you make a lie in the beginning, it will always turn bitter in the end.

Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is an oil on panel painting and was completed during 1505 – 1510. This particular piece is a triptych since it is three separate panels that form one piece of art. The two outer panels fold inward to create one outside panel with another painting. This writing will only be covering the three inside panels. Bosch’s painting is located in the Museo Nacional Del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The painting stands at approximately 7’ tall and 12’ wide. The painting’s main color palette is mostly comprised of blue, red, and green.

Middlesex by Jeffry Eugenides is a book about Calliope “Cal” Stephanides. In the beginning of the book, Cal, as he likes to be referred to as, tells us about his condition. Cal has a 5-Alpha-Reductase pseudohermaphrodite which is, simply put, a condition that affects the sexual development of males before the birth of the child and also during puberty. In Middlesex, incestuous marriages were secretly accepted among the villagers which resulted in Cal being conceived by cousins. Before Cal’s birth, the tradition of his family was gender prediction by his grandmother, Desdemona Stephanides. It seemed to be a traditional thing for the family from the Greek roots. When it was time to predict Tessie’s, Cal’s mother, baby, Desdemona declared that the child would be a boy. Milton, Cal’s father, disagreed because there was no way the baby could be a boy scientifically. This could also be based on the fact that Tessie and Milton wanted a baby girl. Until the age of sixteen, Cal was raised as a girl even though he had a male brain biologically.

The Monster is struggling to find his identity. He is trying to figure out if he is like Adam made upon this earth for a purpose or like Satan expelled from the “almighty kingdom”— in his case society. The Monster’s reading of

This book allows the reader to be surprise that he shows no emotions where he should. He shows a minimal emotions during his mother’s funeral, love for Marie, excitement for his job promotion, and no regret for murdering the Arab. In the end, Camus show that humans existence is based on living and dying.

The two main characters in the painting display elegant mannered poses and all the figures appear arranged in rather unnatural poses. There is a small scene at the foot of the Saint Catherine and Christ figures. This is thought to be the Christ child with the Virgin Mary and grandmother, Saint Anne. Below these two scenes are three smaller bordered scenes. The central one depicts two enemies reconciled by an archangel and the outer ones show Saints Michael and Margaret fighting demons. All these images show the triumph of good over evil, with the middle characters shedding their weapons and embracing. All these small pictures support that the painting was commissioned by Arigoi di Nero Arighetti to celebrate the end of a feud.

<br>At the bottom left side of the painting is a man about to be eaten by a termite who has a game table on his head. This is illustrating that the tables are turned on the man who has committed some terrible crime. In the Inferno this is represented by Lucifer eating the three worst sinners, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius, all who betrayed their

The difference between “Serpents of Paradise” by Edward Abbey and “Thinking Like a Mountain” by Aldo Leopold is specifically that one essay focuses more on the hunting aspect of life. Both essays seem to care about the environment. In Abbey’s essay he tries to figure out how to avoid killing the snake; he needed to stay calm and move it without getting bit. In Leopold’s essay he killed a wolf to save the deer population; allowing him to hunt more deer. Each essay was written with great description, yet showing one author cared more about the animal and its environment over the other. In both Leopold and Abbey essays they wanted to alter their environment, but only Abbey succeeded due to Abbey having the correct knowledge when it came to his environment.

A garden that holds your secrets, that is a secret itself, holds a special spot in the book “The Secret Garden”. The garden is described as an overgrown hidden beauty that has not been seen for ten years. The woman who created the garden passed away because of an accident; in turn, her husband becomes bitter and wrathful. The door which led to the garden was locked and the key was buried while the orders were given for no one to enter the garden again. There’s more to the garden than just being hid away. The garden is a secret to some very important characters in this story, but why? Perhaps the overgrown secret may even have a secret of its own.

Susan Sontag discusses the difference in viewing art in physical form versus viewing in through a lens. Throughout the essay “In Plato’s Cave”, Sontag thinks both Plato’s cave images and photographs represents, “the mere image of truth” (Sontag 3). With that, Sontag repeatedly uses the terms “truth” and “reality”, but does not define what these terms mean to her. The impression Sontag left for these terms is that “truth” or “reality” stand for nothing more than what we can see. Being said, the difference between what we can with our own eyes and what we can see with a camera is reduced to the physical/mechanical differences between the human eye and body camera/lens.

Far in the distance, the faint chewing sound of people taking their first bites into their carne asada tacos, the loud, sharp clinks of tequila glasses, and the hoarse bangs of a piñata being beaten all come hand in hand, representing a Mexican celebration in La-La Land or also known as the city of Los Angeles. The city has been nicknamed “La-La Land” due to its recognition of being a place full of fun and out of touch with reality. For the past several decades, the city of Los Angeles has increasingly become a Latino city as they hosted countless festivals to celebrate the Mexican cultural holidays such as Cinco de Mayo, El Dia de Los Muertos and etc. In the book, The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz discusses the generalization of Mexicans and emphasizes the idea of them preferring to be placed in solitude due to their fear of intimacy. The book even discusses the roles of a Mexican fiesta and cultural aspects of the Latino culture. By having Mexican holidays celebrated in Los Angeles, the city has become more invested into the Latino culture with the adoption of its cultural belief of death and celebrations techniques, which include excessively drinking, usage of guitars, letting off fireworks and celebratory gunshots.

I personally get a sense of perfection in a human world when I look at this painting, which is a bit misleading but appropriate for a time in which men were beginning to question the divine and finding answers in the natural world where science and mathematical solutions were starting to make sense of everything around us.