Idealism Essay

The Lady of Shallot   "The Lady of Shallot," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, acts as a voice for people struggling with materialism of the industrial age. Tennyson became famous for reflecting the "idealism of an industrious society that was nonetheless racked by deep doubts about its materialism" (The Longman Anthology Of British Literature p. 1908). The curse of the mysterious lady of the poem could be thought of  as the curse of the people subcombing to the dreaded materialism and giving

Heroes and Heroism in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day       When one asks a child, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" a usual response is "a fireman" or "a ballerina."  In Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day, however, the young Bim and Raja are somewhat more ambitious; they answer that they want to be a hero and heroine.  Later, Bim asks somewhat bitterly, "The hero and heroine-where are they?  Down at the bottom of the well-gone, disappeared" (157).  Bim has lost track of her heroes;

The Epistemology of Hegel's Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit In his Phenomenology of Spirit, G.W.F. Hegel lays out a process by which one may come to know absolute truth. This process shows a gradual evolution from a state of "natural consciousness" (56) (1) to one of complete self-consciousness - which leads to an understanding of the "nature of absolute knowledge itself" (66). By understanding the relation between consciousness and truth, one may come to know the true nature of

Consciousness is the state or condition of being conscious. A sense of one's personal or collective identity, especially the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or a group. There are several different stages of consciousness. Waking consciousness, altered states of consciousness and sleep.      Waking consciousness is the mental state that includes moving and thinking, along with anything else done while

The Female Athlete: The Image and the Ideal The ideal images of female athletes presented in the films for this class have had a strong connection to the images of ideal women in society in general. Like the ideal image of women, there are many variations of the ideal image of female athletes. While Dare to Compete tracked the evolution of the role of the real female athletes, the feature films we watched presented varying views of the ideal female athlete, which has been different in different

In the play Death of a Salesman, the plot is affected by three minor characters: Ben, Charley and Howard. The minor characters help the story's protagonist, Willy, develop extensively throughout the course of the play; therefore, they are key elements in the advancing story line. This story line blends and contrasts Willy's closest companions, Ben and Charley. They represent two aspects of Willy's ideals. Howard, Willy's boss, functions in order to heighten the destruction of Willy's dream. The characters

During this paper I will discuss Fichte’s ideas on the absolute ego and how it pertains to the idea of God. I will also discuss the similarities and also the differences between Fichte and Smakra as outlined by Lewis. I will then conclude with my remarks and thoughts upon the subject matter. Fichte was an idealist. This is the belief that nothing is known to us except ideas. Since this was the belief of Fichte he avoided dualism and instead believed that only that which is in and for consciousness

Considering that there are many different levels of realism, I have chosen to focus on Neuromancer by William Gibson and We so Seldom Look on Love by Barbara Gowdy. The stories explore the boundaries of realism by using similar elements. The most obvious one is the margin between life and death, which these two stories address. The main characters separate themselves from society's idealistic realism. Nevertheless, where is their identity placed when living in a different realism? How does one understand

Utopia by Thomas More and The Prince by Machiavelli Thomas More’s Utopia and Machiavelli’s The Prince both concern themselves with the fundamental issues of how a society works and maintains itself. The goals behind the two works, however, differ considerably. The goal of Utopia is to illustrate the maintenance of an “ideal” society and the goal of The Prince is to instruct a prince, or ruler, on how to maintain his state. On the surface these two goals may seem similar but the

Epicurus supported that the images people had for gods were varying due to the different preconceptions that had been implanted to every person separately. Very often there were false convictions expressed by people even if their preconceptions reflected their own natural goals. Lucretius protested against voices who presented gods as having evil intents and as prone to partiality and fury: “Unhappy human race, to attribute such behavior, and bitter wrath too, to the gods! What lamentations did they