The Gods Themselves

Judith Butler’s Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy and Jomny Sun’s everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too illuminate similar ideas by using vastly different styles. Butler chooses to display her work in a very detailed, thorough way. Meanwhile, Sun manages to teach the same lesson, using a much simpler method of writing. Even though both of these texts share common themes, they have varying effects on the reader. After reading Butler’s essay, I felt I was being attacked, as if I was being challenged to help change social norms. With Sun, I finished the book feeling soothed and satisfied with the end result. A particular idea brought up in both texts is the idea of categories and their negative effects. The idea of categories of Butler is shown in Sun by the many characters; I believe that the use of categories overwhelmingly carries more negative effects.

During the writing of the novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, the author of the book, saw the way society was beginning to change. Throughout the story, he explores many different predictions that he has seen create an affect our world today. One of the main predictions he made was on the way promiscuity has changed the view of romantic relationships. As Huxley began to see people’s sexual behavior change he used his ideas to integrate in with how the world would turn out. Huxley incorporates promiscuity in his utopian society called the World State, to foreshadow how the world is conforming to the beliefs incorporated in the novel.

“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against” (Bradbury, 55-56). Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is set in a bleak dystopian future in which books are illegal, freethinking is considered taboo and dangerous, and entertainment like TV and racing cars is used to control the masses. In this government controlled society, where the public is brainwashed in order to create a seemingly perfect world, standing apart from the majority is frowned upon and regarded as a threat against society. Firemen no longer put out fires and save lives in this world, but instead destroy and burn all books, along with the houses in which they are hidden. If a person breaks the social contract by reading books, asking questions, or doing anything other than watching the “parlors” or listening to the “seashells”, that person could be arrested or killed in order to protect the integrity of the system. Individuality is viewed as rebelling against the conformity set by the government and is punished severely. This novel uses the juxtaposition of characters like Clarisse and Montag, who represent free thought and self-expression, and those who have completely succumbed to their environment, like Beatty and Mildred, to highlight the contrast between danger of conformity and the significance of individuality.

People like to believe that the idea of conformity versus individuality is as clear as black and white. It is either side with society and conform or retain individuality and go against the norms. When it comes down to it, individuality and conformity are not foreign concepts. We see the idea executed in everyday life. In his novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury reveals that individuality and conformity is not strictly two sides, but rather, a spectrum with many views in between. Bradbury expands on the theme of conformity versus individuality in society through his characters Guy Montag, Clarisse McClellan, and Captain Beatty.

Throughout The Iliad, Homer offers us a glimpse into the lifestyles of the ancient Greeks and their beliefs. They are a very spiritual and in many ways superstitious people. The main thing to note throughout The Iliad is the interaction between the gods and the humans. Any way one looks at the situation, they can immediately see that humans are mere pawns to the gods in their game of chess. The success and failures of the humans depends on what god would be helping which group and at what particular time. This essay will explain the three main reasons the gods in The Iliad intervened with humans: Firstly, gods who act on their own personal motives, secondly, gods who act as favors to other gods, and finally gods who act as favors to

In the story, Harrison Bergeron, one learns that the author, Kurt Vonnegut, does not like the way society is. He does not like how people judge one another because one is not as attractive, or smarter, or funnier. He

Two coarse yet uniquely fragile societies, three hundred years apart, devoured by individual ideologies that permeated belief systems, that blinded, deafened, and muted citizens, and that ultimately led to gruesome hysteria. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, written by Jonathan Edwards in the mid-1700’s, is a sermon directed to a Puritan congregation urging with orthodox fervor for transgressors to repent. Arthur Miller wrote the allegorical play The Crucible in 1953, lively portraying the hysteria occurring during the Salem Witch Trials in an effort to describe his perceptions of the post-war climate of McCarthyism and the sheer terror of Communism. In the pulpit oratory “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God”, Edwards eloquently uses imagery, metaphors, and symbolism in order to instill fear in his congregation and persuasively explain to them that, aside from faith and the pleasure of God, one would be rapidly and eternally damned to Hell; Miller, on the other hand, exploits allegory, characterization, and imagery throughout the play The Crucible in order to fervently articulate his disdainful attitude regarding McCarthyism and the Red Scare.

After winning the American Revolutionary War, Our founding fathers faced a problem. How would they create a new government for America? Our founding fathers found a way, studying the ancient Roman Republic.

And how can you say a man had a good mind when he couldn’t even bother to do anything when the best-hearted, most beautiful woman in the world, his own wife, was dying for lack of love and understanding’” (48). Martin mocks the prevailing notion that Felix is a harmless, playful innocent. Vonnegut depicts how people admire Felix because he is not influenced by materialistic values. However, Martin correctly points out that he does not deserve praise for not desiring the values that drive others. Thus, Vonnegut persistently allows for subjugation of Felix’s family members and permits the perpetuation of his diabolical atrocities. While Vonnegut obscurely elicits Felix’s “destructive” innocence, he blatantly illustrates Lowe Crosby’s conceitedness.

Main Idea: Continuing on top of the last chapter and adding a twist, Foster tells us that actually when a work of literature does involve an explicit sex scene, the event almost certainly contains layers of meaning that go beyond the act of sex itself. The action of writing explicit sex

Despite the patriotism and nationalism constantly encouraged in the United States, our society is far from perfect, and science fiction is just one genre that comments on these frailties. Science fiction comments on our world by creating a dystopian society in attempt to emphasize our civilization’s dangerous flaws. Two examples can be examined in the selections, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury and "Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut. Fahrenheit 451 is about a society consumed with every possible form of technology. The people neglect one another and find a family within their fascinating trinkets. This is not very similar to our society, yet our society could eventually go down this path. Most characters from the book ignore knowledge and it is also against the law to educate oneself from books. Overall, there is limited meaningful conversation amongst the majority of people and instead, a lot of propaganda provided by the government. All of these precautions are taken so that ‘every minority is happy,’ similar to the theme of "Harrison Bergeron.” Furthermore, this selection focuses on equality and the lengths that a government will go to in attempt to destroy

The use of Cold War parallels, ignorant characters, technology, and censorship in Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles show the theme in Bradbury’s novels that society’s majority is not always right.

In many different texts such as “Gilgamesh” and “The Odyssey”, there is a relationship displayed between God and man or “the divine”. In these stories the gods are almost always close by. The gods in Gilgamesh are very similar to the humans in terms of appearance. Not only that but they behave similar as well. They have emotions and feel things but also expect things of the humans. They want sacrifices and for the humans to obey them. In obeying and pleasing the gods however, the humans in return expect to be guided by the gods and kept safe. This is because the humans see the gods as unconquerable, almighty, and immortal beings. Although being seen that way to the human’s, the gods have their weaknesses too. Despite the fact that there are gods in Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh himself is two thirds god and one third man. He too has unbelievable strength and does unbelievable things like killing the Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. He is capable of doing things like the gods because he is like them to an extent. He too feels things such as sadness and grief when his friend Enkidu dies. The gods play a part in the lives of man in this way too. For example, the gods agreed in council that either Gilgamesh or Enkidu must die for what they had done in killing the Bull of Heaven. In the end this resulted in Enkidu’s death. Gilgamesh like the gods, doesn’t only feel and have emotions but has a weakness as well. Gilgamesh’s weaknesses in this story are arrogance and pride. He displays this

Another important aspect of the novel is that of sexuality and of same-sex desire. Froehlich states that, in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries,

While it would be very easy to focus on the constant assault of the sexuality of both the men and women that are represented in this story, I feel that sexuality is only a minor theme. The provocativeness that the story contains is used more to draw people to either listen or view the story itself than present a major theme in sexuality. The major issue that he is trying to bring forward is that of conflict and how it occurs in more than just war. Let's look at the three major conflicts within this story.