The Role Of Obstacles In World Literature

Hardships have the power to make a break a person, as Roman poet, Horace, once said, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”. Everyone has or will have to face adversity at some point in their lives, it is a universal truth. Although misfortunes usually have a negative connotation, depending on the struggle and how one deals with it, it is likely the person will come out of misfortune better prepared for the world. Contrastly, if a person never experienced any hardships, they would lack a sophisticated understanding of the world and lack the ability to handle difficult situations. Adversity gives people strength they can not obtain with success.

Everyone experiences moments of suffering at one point in their lives. These moments can be referred to as obstacles. These obstacles, when not overcome, can be detrimental to the physical and mental well being of someone. In A Narrative of the Captivity, Mary Rowlandson describes being a Puritan captured by Indians as a result of King Philip’s war during the 17th century. Not only did she have to live alongside the Indians as a prisoner, but she was also captured and separated from her children. In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Equiano and his sister were kidnapped and traded among various households as servants. Every time Equiano managed to ease the pain, he was deprived from the alleviation, such as the time he was separated from his sister. Both authors suffered a great amount due to the fact that they lost important people in their lives and were filled with terror at the mere thought of being held captive. The difference between these two stories is the means they use to try to overcome their obstacles.

Although several aspects of life are predetermined, there are moments people have control over their fate. For example, no one has control over death, and even though many refuse their undeniable fate, it cannot be avoided. However, there are choices we make that mold our future, thus, changing our fate. On various occasions, there will be a fork in one’s path, and that person will have to choose which journey to take. In life, there are small, ineffective decisions you have to resolve, but there are also larger, life altering choices. Of course, others may feel the same way about fate, or entirely different. In fact, since the beginning of time, authors of literature have discussed their ideas on such matters, a few examples being Dr. Seuss, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allen Poe. These authors, famous for their thought provoking literary work, provide differing opinions on the fate and destiny of a human being through the use of allegory.

Life is like an obstacle course, you run into multiple obstacles on the way to the finish line, and there's no telling how many hindrances you may encounter. Very few people can go their whole life without obstacles along the way, others can’t seem to get away from them, but with every obstacle comes a beneficial or deleterious concomitant.

Life’s sufferings offer us a lesson to build character and faith to ultimately gain judgement.

We can see that some hardships are for personal betterment, while others are for sensible reason what so ever, however if there is one idea we can agree on. It is that hardships do indeed influence a person's life because they make a person stronger, wiser, and more

In life we may go through hardships that take us down a path that benefits us in the future and make us stronger individuals. These hardships can influence a person’s life by making us face obstacles we don’t want to face and

When people go through something difficult it can change them. Making them who they are, it can change them for the bad or good. Therefore, hardships can greatly influence a person’s life by making them appreciate all the things that make life enjoyable.

Obstacles. Everyone has been forced to overcome them at some point in their life. These obstacles have shaped everyone and helped them become the person they are today. Challenges are a part of life and everyone will face them at some point in their life, but it is how people handle it that determines their future. This idea can be seen in many pieces of text including the following poems. “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley and “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” by Tupac both convey the idea that obstacles are important in everyone’s life and help shape everyone as a person on the way to their dream.

Of course, adversity is ultimately inevitable in life. When a problem arises, individuals are generally astonished at the response to the complexity of the situation. This makes adversity becomes a wall that is unable to be broken down. However, there is a point in an individual where their instincts can reveal the truth, “it’s part of life to have obstacles, it’s about overcoming obstacles, that’s the key to happiness.” Qualities and characteristics of individuals are revealed during the hard times. These talents that are within us, that are usually locked up to give the ability for an individual to unlock the adversity that it created. In this sense, an individual true color and nature can be revealed leading to a new understanding of the capability to overcome adversities.

Hardships are a permanent part of life we will always come across. They can toughen us up to the world we live in.

In life there will always be those moments that we most value and those that we wish to avoid. Misfortunes are the situations or events that we wish to vanish from our lives because we view them in a negative way. However, what many choose to avoid is actually something that defines who we are. Misfortunes develop one’s character and it identifies us as a person. Everyone goes through different situations and because of that each and every person develops their own unique character based on those misfortunes. The essays “Flavio’s Home” by Gordon Parks, “What I’ve Learned From Men” by Barbara Ehrenreich, and “Common Decency” by Susan Jacoby all explain to us in detail the situation that a particular person is going through which in the end reveals how the person’s character was developed by that misfortune.

In our hesitant humanly efforts to accept the ultimate fate, we find a painful truth, an

Life has many obstacles that it will throw your way, its if people are going to overcome them. Everybody has something there dealing with right now and will always be. It's just what is going to happen during life no matter how hard anybody tries for them to not come. And when they come (and they will) the decision will have to be made, overcome them or get knocked down and have more problems that will come. It's all about attitude towards it, will people fall down and feel sorry for themselves or will they stand strong and fight their problems head on. I don't know what’s coming and nobody else does but it's up to you to make it.

As human beings everyone suffers but we all suffer differently. Some suffer emotionally, some suffer physically, some suffer mentally. And through suffering and pain we gain different experiences, we either overcome pain and sorrows or we break down waste our lives. Edwidge Danticat present the theme of suffering in each of her stories. In all the stories the characters have to go through pain, but they all over come it in different ways. This is true in real life too. in the children of the sea that characters suffer but the outcome is that, in 1937 the outcome is inner peace, and My outcome is discovering myself.