The Hero's Tragic Journeys

As he reflects on this time in his life, now being converted to a Catholic, he understands that at that time he should have lifted his heart to the Lord

Even though he will not let himself be beaten for no reason, if he has made an inadvertent mistake, he will try to correct it, as he does with his grandmother, after accidentally embarrassing in church. “Later, I convinced her that I had not wanted to hurt her and she immediately seized upon my concern for her feelings as an opportunity to have one more try at bringing me to god. She wept and pleaded with me to pray... I promised; after all, I felt that I owed her something for inadvertently making her ridiculous before the member of her church.” (Wright 119) And he follows through with that. He prays, daily, for an hour. That hour is torture, but he keeps his promise, abiding by his moral code. He is different from the boys and girls of his church congregation, and class: they have been indoctrinated and do as they are told, docilely. One boy walks up to Richard, prompted by the congregation, who think that Richard is doomed to burn in Hell, and tries to convert him; it is obvious that the boy has no real conviction in God of his own, rather, the belief in God has been forced upon him by his parents and community. “Though older than I, he had neither known nor felt anything of life for himself; he had been carefully reared by his mother and father and he had always been told what to feel.”(Wright 116) Meanwhile, Wright, in stark contrast, resists the attempts of his Grandmother and extended family to indoctrinate him into religion, instead deciding to

he begins to realize he is not worthy to be a god or have everlasting

     After he delt with the death of a close religious friend he experienced the loss of a close

In the assigned writing, Stan Coppinger attempts to enlighten the reader about God’s character, based on his own personal experiences. I found it intriguing that Coppinger, who has been diagnosed with incurable cancer, claims his faith in God has grown following his diagnosis; in general, people tend to lose their faith when confronted with life altering obstacles. Although Coppinger’s story is inspiring, I am skeptical about the validity of his claim when it is expanded to incorporate the general population because much of his supporting evidence relies on his faith, which is entirely objective.

Both readings of Alister E McGrath talk about faith. One focuses on how faith has change over the years and the other reading focuses on the challenges of faith.

This makes him see himself as being perfect and flawless, on a level with the gods and is

Through the story, Faith symbolizes his relationship with religion and the direction it is going.

It seems his creativity and imagination is rejected from the church. When the sister nun who was teaching him but told him to leave because of his space helmet and mentions how he cannot come back until he is ready, she meant that he should obey and look a certain way before he can come back to accept the lord. This suggests that he needs to find a different place to be who he is. As a child it does seems he will be leaving the church through

Brie tells Sebastian what Jonah has done and immediately Sebastian goes after him. The brothers argue, but nothing is settled. Then Brie goes to Jonah herself. She needs him and craves the

believe he had to rediscover his own believes and or attitudes and become independent within himself.

His soul is taken on a journey by an angel. That journey is to show him the rewards of good

By the end he is able to set aside is old beliefs and allows himself to be truly happy. Pride is a virtue that can sometimes be too powerful

Now, he has nothing. What is a man without his livelihood, without his property, without his faith?

To resolve this, he decides to discard all his former beliefs and conceptions, reconstruct his knowledge, and only acknowledging information as true only if the statements are unquestionably true. He believed that he could be dreaming and at any moment wake up. Perhaps God or some evil entity could be deceiving him and so he concluded that everything he once thought was real was obtained through the senses and dismissing his own sanity was the only way to obtain concrete truth.