During the struggle of having a meaningful life, an individual must be able to define what is meaningful and how to obtain it. In the story excerpt “The Signature of All Things” by Elizabeth Gilbert, the protagonist, Alma, explores the part of her childhood where she breaks away from routine and makes the decision to make the most of the moment. To contrast, the poem “Atrophy” by Julia Copus explores the outcome of people who do not make the most of their lives and are stuck thinking of their wasted potential. An individual must routinely reconcile their past and present to obtain the power to make autonomous choices in order to create a meaningful life before the opportunity to grasp this power reaches its expiration date. The meaningful life an individual strives for differs in definition from person to person, and involves breaking away from the monotony of routine towards something of fulfillment. In the excerpt Alma is routinely the “only child in attendance” at different dull adult parties. She has been the observer as the child. The …show more content…
The autonomous choices Alma makes in the story provide insight in how it is important for the individual to know their own definition of meaningful, and how support in pursuing it is needed to obtain it. The poem “Atrophy” by Julia Copus is written from the perspective of someone who made the wrong choices and is stuck thinking of regrets instead of pursuing their fullest life. A meaningful life is defined by the individual alone and the power necessary to reach it is only obtained when an individual reconciles their past and present. If for too long an individual focuses on the past and abstains from making the choices necessary then they are capable of losing the ability
People often find the need to seek the meaning of life. They feel as though there has to be more to life or that they are blinded to something vital in the grand scheme of things. Different people use different means, some go on grand journeys hoping to find some sort of wisdom in their experience. This is where we find a parallel in the lives of Chris McCandless and Siddhartha, the main characters of Into the wild by Jon Krakauer and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. In both stories the main character lives a well off life but becomes dissatisfied by societal conventions.
Your Silver Spoon Will Be the Death of You Meghan Daum’s Variation of Grief exemplifies how different people take advantage of their different lifestyles. Daum’s view of her friend, Brian Peterson, suggests that his privilege and lack of importance for time hindered him from maturing. His family was not large, according to Daum,”The Peterson family unit was a tiny thing—mom, dad, kid. There were no other siblings, only a handful of relatives.” Brian’s parents gave him everything he wanted.
Scott-Maxwell, F. (1979). The measure of my days. New York: Penguin Books. The Measure of My Days is an autobiography by Florida Scott-Maxwell, which she had written in her eighties.
“Fragments from the Long Game” Rhetorical Analysis Alzheimers causes family and friends to watch as their loved one slowly fades away into the past. This disease causes people to lose the life they are living while they slowly deteriorate into knowing nothing and no one except for their old memories of the past. Kate Carroll De Gutes wrote the essay “Fragments from the Long Game” portraying the view of losing her mother to Alzheimers and how it affected her view on life which is displayed through the format and fluidity of her writing. Periodically throughout this essay, Kate offers themes and experiences in which others can relate to which allows the audience to understand her new view on life and living in the present. Regardless of having
In today's world, many people are very ungrateful for their current state they are in and complain without taking any action, only adding negativity to their lives. In the slam poem "Complainers" by Rudy Francisco, it demonstrates that one's constant focus on negativity and complaints towards life with no action results in failure to recognize the joys life has to offer. Throughout the slam poem, the author makes effective use of allusion, metaphor, and repetition to inspire and encourage readers to make positive changes in their lives and to strive towards self-improvement. Firstly, the author uses allusion to draw on the reader's pre-existing knowledge of the subject matter and establish the context of the discussion. " May 26th 2003 Aron Ralston was hiking, a boulder fell on his right hand.
Julia Alvarez, in her poem “’Poetry Makes Nothing Happen’?”, writes that poems do play a role in people’s lives. She supports her idea by using relateable examples of how poems might change someone’s life. Her first example is simple, poetry can entertain someone on long drives. This does not only aply to long dirves however, Alvarez uses this to show that poetry does not have to have a big influence on someone’s life, instead it can affect a person in the smallest of ways, such as entertainment. The second example describes poetry comforting someone after the loss of a loved one.
However, women have more realistic and reachable dreams and choose their journey more carefully to get the most out of life and the road to the horizon. The author uses the motifs of the horizon and the road to demonstrate the importance and simplicity of life and to enjoy it while it lasts. To begin, the author uses the motif of the horizon to demonstrate the importance of simplicity in life. The main character Janie was able to go “to the horizon and back” (Hurston 191) because she had set realistic goals for herself. Her grandmother had always wanted her to sit up in the high chair of society because her own life had been ruined by tragedy and slavery.
The reader can acknowledge how Singer believes that the primary source of living a meaningful life, is love. Within his novel, the Pursuit of Love, Irving Singer discusses how love is the central definition of what meaning is, as well as further analyzes how love is not a desire to be loved. Nonetheless, Irving Singer would claim that life is not meaningless because humans search for meaning within all aspects of our existence. By solely being alive, individuals find the things that matter to them; therefore, whatever we as individuals believe “matters,” is a prerequisite for our life because it will bring happiness. Irving Singer’s optimistic theories make him an ideal philosopher because he offers an immense amount of insight by discussing how we can add meaning to our lives.
Through the writer’s use of literary symbolism by associating maturing with life experiences, readers are able to visualize how life
The way that such intricate, specific, and divergent books and life events relate is quite showing that the choices we make do affect others and ourselves, our passions define us in positive and negative ways, and being alone in an indifferent world makes us more aware in the end. Hardship and toil prove themselves to be worth it because for Marjane, Meursault, and myself, the results of our hard work with teach us more strength and independence than before. Existentialism exists more than we can see, and its philosophy promotes learning from
Lisa needs that support as she goes forward in her life. We all need that safety net as we struggle forward; this message of the safety in the middle of the uncertain change is true and descriptive of our early college years today as well. IV. Conclusion: Reflections on Reading Poetry A. Reading poetry is often not as specific as prose, and it leaves more to the imagination; different words hold different meanings for different readers. B. In changing and moving into our own adult lives; our parents and grandparents often already know of the struggle we are going through.
We often encourage people to actively pursue their happiness while also wanting to discourage them to escape from reality. However, avoiding your issues is also a way of pursuing happiness, even though this route will prove to be temporary. In the literary piece, “Horses of the Night” by Margaret Laurence, the author describes the story of a boy named Chris, who, due to his financial conditions, is forced to move from his home in Shallow Creek to dwell in Manawaka, in order to attend high school. Chris’ character is used to demonstrate the idea that individuals may escape from the miserable aspects of their lives in order to stay happy. Through the course of this work, you witness the changes Chris undergoes, through the eyes of his six-year-old cousin Vanessa, which ultimately lead to his downfall.
But what happens when a person lets go any effort to be someone, become someone or identify themselves to someone? This sole desire to set one’s own tracks leads to the initiation of self-realization. The main character, Edna Pontellier had many different awakenings that set the tracks to her self-awareness
From her internal thoughts and observations, the reader is given knowledge of the exact extent to which Ellie’s own mortality affects her thoughts, actions, and enjoyment of her whole life. The impact of the knowledge is best demonstrated when the reader is told, “Yet
The American science fiction and fantasy author Richard Grant once said that “the value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.” In both The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the main protagonists search for their identities through the context of their daily lives. In correlation with the preceding quotation, in The Awakening, after a vacation opens her eyes to all that she has been missing in her life, she becomes desperate to find herself outside of the mother-woman while in The Handmaid’s Tale, the narrator must decide which parts of her identity she wants to hold on to and who she is in the trying times of the Gileadean society. The two novels demonstrate the journey of these women