The norm refers to a state in which affairs are standard, typical, usual, expected and unexceptional among others. In his book, the Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse explores some of the issues relating to deviation from the norm like how an individual is affected. In addition, the play “Mother Courage and her Children” also presents various matters relating to the norm, its significance, and how the environment is altered in case of a deviation. Furthermore, Bertolt Brecht vividly examines how an individual has a difficult time to adapt to the changes in the norm naturally. The paper will talk abiut the significance of the norms in these two masterpieces, the effects of what is considered normal to the characters, and what they lose or gain when they stray from the norm.
Hermann Hesse uses Harry Haller as an example of a person who has an intrapersonal conflict due to dissatisfaction with the normal life. He shows that leading and conforming to normalcy proves hard for some people. We are taken through the Steppenwolf treatise that records a man’s multifaceted soul, which Haller fails to understand (Hesse 15). He is encircled in a struggle that cannot be solved and he is not satisfied with being either right or wrong. This fixed, the firm, false and personally developed concept makes him blind to the other world that is considered normal. He says “How foolish it is to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence.” (Hesse 33) to mean, there is comfort in
silence and complains. As far as we know Mrs. Penn has failed to do this for
Peter Shaffer and Franz Kafka, the authors of Equus and Metamorphosis, reveal through their main characters’ struggles how society’s oppression causes a loss of identity. This oppression is caused by society’s obsession with what it believes to be normal and how society’s beliefs drive it to conform those who don’t fit its normal image. The two authors use their characters to symbolize the different views and judgments of society. And based on these judgments, the authors use two different types of oppression that cause different outcomes. Finally, this essay will reveal how the two authors use their characters to drain the protagonist’s identity to show society’s desire to conform.
"The Mother," by Gwendolyn Brooks, is a sorrowful, distressing poem about a mother who has experienced numerous abortions. While reading the poem, you can feel the pain, heartache, distress and grief she is feeling. She is both remorseful and regretful; nevertheless, she explains that she had no other alternative. It is a sentimental and heart wrenching poem where she talks about not being able to experience or do things with the children that she aborted -- things that people who have children often take for granted. Perhaps this poem is a reflection of what many women in society are feeling.
The memoir took readers through the roller coaster ride Jeannette Walls’ knew as her young life. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rex and Rose Mary Walls’ parenting styles are quite similar to how Walt Disney believed children should be brought up. His belief was that “ Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality”. Both the Walls and Disney believe children shouldn’t be sheltered from the harsh realities of the world; they should learn about life the hard way. Nowadays parents shelter their kids, but Jeannette Walls’ parents and Walt Disney believe in an opposite way of parenting.
Elisheva Baumgarten’s work stands as a model for students and scholars alike in its comprehensive review of little-known writings and other sources from medieval Ashkenazi Jews as well as in its meticulous analysis of the often ambiguous writings. In Mothers and Children, Baumgarten examines a plethora of primary sources to explore the inner dynamics of Jewish families; she then uses this information to draw objective conclusions about the relationship between the Jewish and Christian communities in the middle ages.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, one of Atticus Finch’s most significant qualities, courage, impacts the story. Throughout the book, Harper Lee portrays courage as doing something out of your comfort zone, for the greater good or a good cause. The first example shows how Atticus’s quality of courage impacts the story. Atticus is sitting in front of the jail cell where Tom Robinson, the African-American man he is defending, is being kept. When Mr. Cunningham and the rest of his followers confront Atticus, he stays strong, keeps his ground and doesn’t let anything happen to Tom. The interaction starts with Mr. Cunningham approaching Atticus, “He in there, Mr. Finch? He is, and he’s asleep. Don’t wake him up. In obedience to my father. There followed what I later realized was a sickeningly comic aspect of an unfunny situation: the men talked in near-whispers. You know what we want. Get Aside from the door, Mr. Finch. You can turn around and go home, Walter. Heck Tate’s around somewhere.”(171-172) Atticus stops Mr. Cunningham and his men from harming Tom before his trial. It took courage to stand up to men who are usually cordial with him resulting in Tom not being killed and allowing the trial to continue. In the second example, it shows how Atticus’s actions reflect what how Harper Lee believes courage looks like in everybody. Atticus is brought to a tough decision in whether or whether not to defend Tom Robinson. When Scout asks him about the case and why he decided
Having similar passions can create family bonds and rituals that can be passed down generations. In From Father, with Love by Doris Kearns Goodwin, her and her father share a bond through their love of baseball, and this bond makes Goodwin nostalgic towards the end of the passage. She reveals the passion she had with her father through memories and subsequent bonds she developed with her friends and children. When her father dies, the significant connection between them is lost as she then becomes ambivalent towards baseball and despondent. Eventually Goodwin gets back into baseball and finds bonds with other women who share her similar passion of enjoying baseball.
Compare the ways in which poets reflect on parental relationships – Daddy by Sylvia Plath and Mother Who Gave Me Life by Gwen Harwood
Profiles in Courage starts with beginning of the formation of the United States of America. The book features several men who showed courage throughout senate history. They include, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Quintus Cininnatus Lamar, George Norris, and Robert A. Taft. Each senator stood for what they thought was right instead of conforming to public opinion or what their party thought. They had minds of their own and went against the wave. They fought for what they believed in even if it was unpopular and could cost their jobs. The author’s purpose is to show what courage is through the use of mood, dialog, and logos.
Courage tells us a lot of things and makes us think because without courage we shouldn’t live and walk around others with our full emotions and not been not bad and nice but normal “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak courage is what it takes to sit down and listen” (winston churchill). And I think it is the best behavior that a human can have in his life. And there is more good things that we write or learn.
Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage is a remarkable piece of nonfiction literature. His work is so thorough that one wonders how he has time to do much more. Yet he has created time in his life to go west and go camping and hiking and canoeing in the summers with his family. Which possibly shows that anything can be raw material to the open mind, for it was on those trips that he developed a great fascination with the Lewis and Clark expedition that explored the West when the country was twenty-five years old. Ambrose creates a precise and true story of the expedition in witch most readers would be enthralled. His style is smooth, readable and enjoyable, unlike many historical nonfiction of the day.
Ordinary courage is a book that tells the story of an ordinary man who is inlisted in the continental army in the revolutionary war. Joseph Plumb Martin is the young man fighting in this war, at the time he entered he was just a mere 16 year old kid but by the time his time in the continental army was up he became a man. This is a first person memoir of what it was like for a regular person living in a war zone, and dealing with the everyday fears of food shortage, low morale, and danger of attack. This is something that many people in todays world could not handle because even some of the old guys in the
The poem “The Mother” written by Gwendolyn Brooks in 1945, is a poem that focuses on the immeasurable losses a woman experiences after having an abortion. The poems free verse style has a mournful tone that captures the vast emotions a mother goes through trying to cope with the choices she has made. The author writes each stanza of the poem using a different style, and point of view, with subtle metaphors to express the speaker’s deep struggle as she copes with her abortions. The poem begins with, “Abortions will not let you forget” (Brooks 1), the first line of the poem uses personification to capture your attention. The title of the poem has the reader’s mindset centered around motherhood, but the author’s expertise with the opening line, immediately shifts your view to the actual theme of the poem. In this first line the speaker is telling you directly, you will never forget having an abortion. Brooks utilizes the speaker of the poem, to convey that this mother is pleading for forgiveness from the children she chose not to have.
In a world in which abortion is considered either a woman's right or a sin against God, the poem "The Mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks gives a voice to a mother lamenting her aborted children through three stanzas in which a warning is given to mothers, an admission of guilt is made, and an apology to the dead is given. The poet-speaker, the mother, as part of her memory addresses the children that she "got that [she] did not get" (2). The shift in voice from stanza to stanza allows Brooks to capture the grief associated with an abortion by not condemning her actions, nor excusing them; she merely grieves for what might have been. The narrator's longing and regret over the children she will never have is highlighted by the change in tone
It is evident that both the aspects of weakness and admiration are thoroughly explored through the actions and relationships of various characters giving us insight into the human condition. Both composers highlight that discovery is the base of aspects of the human condition showing that is conjures both weaknesses and admiration. Together the two texts, A Scandal in Bohemia and Departures establish that discovery is the intrinsic provision behind understanding universal truths demonstrating the timelessness of the human