`` Very Good Lives : The Fringe Benefits Of Failure And The Importance Of Imagination Essay

Hundreds of students, parents, and faculty members gathered and created an audience to witness J.K Rowling’s speech at Harvard University in 2008. J.K Rowling is a well-known author, famous for her Harry Potter book series, and much more. Rowling’s speech was well thought out, and delivered excellently, with three main points she addresses throughout the speech. The three points being: failure can lead a person to success, never give up hope on your dreams and aspirations, and lastly Rowling emphasizes the importance of imagination. Sometimes we fail to see that the obstacles in our life help shape the road to our success in the future, and Rowling points out to us that failures and obstacles is what helped us become successful , and to never ignore that.

Rowling, also, presents a more serious tone to the audience. For example, in her two main points of the “benefits of failure” and the “importance of imagination”, she tries to motivate those watching that failing is a part of life and she has failed many times. She tells us “Failure taught me things about myself… found out that I had friend whose value was truly above the price of rubies.” (Rowling). Using the same tone, she provides the audience with the “importance of imagination”. Since she is giving a speech to such an elite school, she believes they have not experienced failure but the fear is what scares them. The fear is of them failing when they are becoming a Harvard graduate. She thinks they have forgotten about how important imagination is by saying, “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside

Marian Evans Lewes relates to aspiring writers by subtly elucidating her own anticipation in order to draw attention to the common misconceptions young people possess about writing. Lewes quickly states how “exultation is a dream before achievement and rarely comes after” (Lewes 8-9). By creating a short and concise sentence, Lewes quickly informs the reader of how in one’s youth, triumph and elation are expected results of one’s work. Yet the reality is that these are attributes that scarcely accompany one’s achievement. Lewes immediately juxtaposes her previously succinct point what that of a lengthy conclusion she has developed. She determines how after one has completed a piece of writing they feel as though their bodies became the system in which writing “develop[s] and grow[s] by some force of which one’s own life has only served as a vehicle and that what is left of oneself is only a poor husk” (11-13). Lewes contrast in

Joel Kupperman in Six Myths about the Good Life: Thinking About What Has Value evaluates that humans as a whole want more comfort and pleasure in life as he it “may represent a tendency that is wired into normal human nature” (Kupperman 1). Through the explanation of pleasure as well as its arguable counterpart, suffering and the discussion of their values in addition to the counterargument of hedonic treadmill, Kupperman’s views about the role of pleasure in living a good life can be strongly supported and evaluated.

As J.K. Rowling once said, “it is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.” As we end our high school career and make our way into the future, we must keep in mind all of the lessons we were taught at Anderson that will help us to succeed, even when we fail the first time. These messages, which were taught through books, will help form us as the young adults we are becoming.

Writing may be an enthralling experience for one and a clever way to decompress for another. In general, however, writing has different purposes for a variety of people. “Why I Write,” written in the late 20th century by Terry Tempest Williams, describes various reasons for writing narrated from a female’s perspective. The short essay begins in the middle of the night with a woman engulfed in her own thoughts. She abruptly goes forth by reciting the multiple reasons why she continues to write in her life. Through a variety of rhetorical devices such as repetition, imagery, analogies, and symbolism, Terry Tempest Williams produces an elegant piece of writing that offers the audience insight into the narrator’s life and forces the audience to have empathy for the narrator with the situation she is incurring.

In 2008, author J.K. Rowling wrote and gave a commencement speech to the graduating class of Harvard University. Rowling aptly named the speech “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”. In this speech Rowling tries to convey the message that failing can be beneficial or an individual and that people should not be afraid to use their imagination. Rowling begins the speech with a reflection on what went through her mind while writing the speech and how the process affected her. During this time Rowling asked herself what she wished she had known at her graduation and came up with the two main ideas of this speech; the merits of failure and significance of imagination. Rowling explains the benefits of failure by using her own personal failure of living in poverty with her daughter and what that failure taught her. For the significance of imagination, Rowling describes it not in terms of how it helped her out of poverty, but of how it opens up people to the world and other individuals around them.

Charlotte rejects her mother’s ideology from a young age, and has the perspective to see past the illusions of perfection her mother creates, and Miss. Hancock gives her the weapons to fight her mother. In seventh grade, Miss. Hancock teaches Charlotte about the metaphor, sparking the creativity within Charlotte her mother shunned. The metaphor becomes a symbol throughout the short story, but it also develops into something deeper. The metaphor becomes an allegory of Charlotte 's rebellion against her mother’s influence, and her future. Writing is an outlet, an opportunity for Charlotte to express and understand herself. The form of expression was a gift from Miss. Hancock, who arms her with the power of creativity. “‘My home,’ I said aloud, ‘is a box It is cool and quiet and empty and uninteresting. Nobody lives in the box,” Charlotte says in seventh grade. She has a complex understanding of herself, and is able to articulate her frustrations through metaphors. After graduating out of Miss. Hancock’s seventh grade class, the story picks up introducing the reader to Charlotte as a

In order to earn her degree in creative writing she needed to complete a novel or set of short stories. She intended to write her memoir but ran into some issues. The emotions about what had happened were still too raw and reliving her memories was too much for her to handle at that time. Instead, she wrote an autobiographical novel. The events that happened in the book all happened to her, but the presence of a fictional character to represent her helped create tolerable distance between her and her experiences. This novel prepared her to write her memoir. Writing her memoir allowed her confront her past in a new way. It required her to revisit her memories as a writer rather than as herself with all her entangled emotions. Examining her life through a different lens allowed her to heal.

However, there are many great people who had overcome adversity through being grit. For example, a famous author, J.K. Rowling is known for her best-selling series Harry Potter. However, Rowling was not rich or famous before the series, she faced many challenges throughout her life. Around the age of twenty-five, Rowling discovered that her mother died from a disease, later, she got married, but she struggled in her marriage with her husband, soon they got a divorce. In addition, Rowling was a single mother, who took care of her daughter on welfare. Through the struggle, wanting to commit a suicide, she decided to do something that she is very passionate about, writing. At this point, Rowling’s began to take a drastic turn for the better, the idea of writing a Harry Potter book. Years later, after she had finally finished the book, she sent it to an agent, but it got declined. Even though

As a child Toni Bambara’s parents were major influences in her pursuit of writing; they were very supportive of her and wanted her to pursue a future that made her happy. Bambara stated that she could remember visiting the Apollo Theater with her father, and listening to the music of the 1940s and 1950s. She and her mother would also listen to people speak from the Speaker’s Corner. Toni Bambara accredited her mother as being the reason she began writing. (www.fembio.org) (www.answers.com) (www.AALBC.com)

During the course of a person’s life, a decision is made as to which direction their life should follow. Most people are encouraged by their loved ones to make this choice for themselves. When Kelly Cherry was twelve, she announced to her musically devoted, string quartet violinist parents that she was going to quit piano lessons and become a writer, in response, “[her] mother said that she would rather kill [her] than have [her] turn out like [her] big brother, a beatnik. She ran to the kitchen to get [a] butcher knife” (“Kelly Cherry”). Needless to say, she was not supported in this career path. Throughout the course of her early writing career, she would hear that she “had no talent for writing” (“Kelly Cherry”). Still, she continued to write, occasionally quitting again and again, like a smoker, only to pick it up again (“Kelly Cherry”). Continually she told herself, “You are not a writer” until one day she revised this to, “If you don’t write your books, no one else will” (“Kelly Cherry”).

Vol. 1 tells in-depth stories on the thoughts and events from her childhood to adulthood and how she constantly thought about her father not being consistent and not being available throughout her life. Pondering everyday wondering on why she thinks of her father so much? Why

Growing up as a child could be looked at as a bumpy road. Average kid has everything they need; food, shelter, and of course water. Whether it is the nicest of places, or the greatest neighborhood, with the greatest food, now that’s a different story. Here, The House on Mango Street takes short stories called vignettes, all of which are told from the perspective of a thirteen-year old girl named Esperanza. As the story goes on, I notice how naïve Esperanza is. She definitely does not understand the concepts going on around her. But as she gets older, I believe she will realize that she wants better for herself, and whatever her future may bring.

Rebecca Stead is fame as an American writer of fiction for children and teens. The achievement of her novels is not doubtful. She was born on January 16, 1968 and raised in New York City. Vassar College was the institution where she acquired her bachelor’s degree in 1989. Moreover, she has started to write since she was a child but she altered her career to become a lawyer. However, Stead started to become of writing subsequent to the birth of her two children. Her inspiration of writing children’s novel was from her son and her collections of story stories on her laptop. One day, her 4-year-old son by chance pushed her laptop out off the dining-room table and destroyed her piece of writing. Stead was very angry with her son and she went to the bookstore to find books which can inspire her to write. From that moment, her motivation and loving in writing began to boost up, and her debut novel was First Light which won The New York Best Times. Due to her great spirit in writing, she won The American Newbery Medal in 2010, Winner of the Boston Globe –Horn Book Award for Fiction, IRA Children’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner and A National Parenting Publications Gold Award for her second novel, When You Reach Me, followed by achieving Guardian Prize in 2013 as the first winner for her third novel, Liar & Spy.