Deus otiosus

“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery”, serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries unintentionally. Major discoveries in an individual’s life predominantly involve this notion. The director, Ang Lee explores this idea in his film adaptation, “Life of Pi”, as the film conveys the lack of control the protagonist, Pi Patel, has over the events occurring within his unfamiliar environment. The bildungsroman genre is prevalent in the film, the unsolicited occurrences act

“I start from the supposition that the world is topsy-turvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power”. These are timeless words from Howard Zinn, at the 1970 debate at John Hopkins University to describe the nature which power generally flows in a society. It suggests that in a society, the figure that can appeal to the immediate interests of the governed, is the leader

be cutting off a man's head or delving into the human psyche as a way of determining whether or not you will be damned to hell or welcomed into Heaven by God. In the literature read thus far each author has a way of solving an unsolvable situation, Deus ex Machina, and considering the perception of the audience. This can be achieved by the author using an outside force or the main character and is usually very convenient. In Judith, the female main character is the heroine in a tale about saving the

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a horror young adult literature written by Ransom Riggs. It tells Jacob Portman’s story who followed clues that lead him to a house for refugees on the Cairnholm Island off the coast of Wales, where his grandfather used to stay during the Second World War back in the 1940s. The Cairnholm Island itself only had one phone and was powered with generators that shut off at 10 pm everyday, foreshadowing the fact that Jacob would go back in time later on. The

From childhood, all individuals are taught that, whether it be at the hands of one’s parents, the government, or even some form of divine intervention (like karma, or god), there is an ultimately inescapable judgment that awaits everyone who transgresses against that which is “right” or “just.” Take from the cookie jar before dinner? No TV for a week. Break the law by stealing from a store, or worse? Spend days, or years, incarcerated. Fail to abide by a number of seemingly arbitrary moral codes

Humans are terrified of their own mortality. This fear of the end, of no longer being, makes it a topic that is generally ignored in day-to-day life, and this makes it an incredibly useful theme in works of art. Netflix’s Devilman Crybaby and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias could not be more different, at least on the surface. One tells of battles between angels, demons, and humans; the other speaks of what a traveler finds in the desert. However, they both force the audience to face the idea of

Plot is the “first precept,” the most crucial characteristic of tragedy. Aristotle defines plot as “the association of the incidents”: i.e., not the story itself but the way the incidents are presented to the target audience, the structure of the play. according to Aristotle, tragedies wherein the final results relies upon on a tightly constructed motive-and-impact chain of actions are superior to those who rely broadly speaking on the character and persona of the protagonist. Plots that meet this

But then various myths show that, once life has been created, the gods tend to retreat from the humanity they create, instead watching them from afar and using specifically chosen and often religious contacts to spread their words and commands. This deus