Wednesday, January 29, 2020
A Bridge to Wisemans Cove Essay Example for Free
A Bridge to Wisemans Cove Essay ‘With it’s sight restored at last, the bird jerked it’s head sideways to look at Carl and then Joy, as though it was asking, is it true? Am I free?’ James Moloney uses the image of the osprey in several ways throughout the novel. The main technique in which it is represented, is the emotion of the characters finally feeling free in there own way. The first use of the image of the osprey is shown when Carl’s mother Kerry would always leave to go on one of her ‘holiday’s’. I believe that she went on these holidays to make herself feel free. To go away for a few days and leave her real life. But in fact she was never really free. Even on her holidays she always knew that she would eventually have to come back to reality, to her children. It’s not that she didn’t love her kids, she did. Perhaps she just couldn’t handle the stress of having to raise three children as a single parent or maybe just having them around was holding her back. During the prelude of the novel an unknown women gets on board a bus. She waits out of sight and sneaks on the bus when the driver is pre-occupied. She does not have a ticket and no one knows who she is. ‘The driver gunned the engine, commanding its throaty roar and the bus pulled away from the roadhouse into the sea of darkness. Only then did the women sit up and permit herself a smile’ At the end of the novel we find out that this women was Kerry. She was on her way back to her children when the bus she was on drowned into the ocean. In the moment that Kerry died, came the realization that she knew she was finally free. Sarah, Carl’s sister also finds the courage to leave and set herself free. Free from living her own life. Since Sarah was old enough to remember she would always have to depend on herself not her mother. When her mother would leave she would have to look after Carl and Harley as though they were her own. She states in the book ‘I’m only nineteen years old. I’ve got my own life. By the time Harley’s old enough to take care of himself, I’ll be thirty.’ Although I don’t agree with the way Sarah went about just dropping Harley and Carl off at their Aunt Beryl’s, I agree that she has her own life to live and she needed to escape. Consequently, setting herself free. The image of the osprey is shown in a major way within Carl. In many ways the osprey is a mirror image of Carl, in its appearance, pain, suffering, recovery and how it is set free. The image of the osprey is remarkably similar to that of Carl’s. It was a, ‘large bird, brown and grey, its head covered by a canvas hood.’ The description of the osprey matches some aspects of Carl’s body and personality. Carl was a large boy, miserable like the colour grey and he was shy like a hood covering his head. This was because he did not want to see what people responded to his body. He was ashamed of himself and the name his family had. Although by the end of the book Carl realizes that he finally has new friends and a new family. He finds that people like him and that they ignore that he is a Matt. ‘My name is Carl Matt. M-A-T-T.’ Carl screams his name out to the world, he doesn’t care anymore. Carl was free. Free of his worries, free of his fears. He is free from the curse that everyone says he and his family has. He could let go of his sorrowful past and be alive just like how the osprey let go of its painful past and began to fly once again. The way the osprey spread it’s wings and took its first beat against the wind symbolizes the emotions rushing through Carl when he finds out his mum truly did love him and Harley. The journey of the osprey mirrored Carl’s personal life. The osprey was set free in a way that makes Carl feel alive. The image of the osprey is used to represent the characters feeling free. It mainly symbolizes as a metaphor for Carl’s life. The osprey is free from being injured by people by being nurtured from Justine and Joy. Carl was also getting injured by people. Throughout his whole life people were hurting him. Kerry, his mother, Beryl, his aunt, his older sister Sarah and kids calling him names about him weight. When he met Justine and Joy, they saved him. They made him feel alive. They set him free.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Free College Admissions Essays: I am a Dynamic Figure :: College Admissions Essays
I am a Dynamic Figure  I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.  I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.   Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.   I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.   I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.   I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) Essay
In the Prologue section of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’, he spoke of a thirty-year-old man named Zarathustra who goes into the wilderness where he stays for ten years taking pleasure in his solitude. When he decides to be in contact with the people again and ‘go under’, Zarathustra starts to share what he has learned over the past ten years. He tells about a Superman, saying that man is born to be between a beast and a Superman. Man should be able to overcome this state, yet the road is very dangerous. He preaches that man should utterly focus on this life and not the life after death. He should hold in contempt things like happiness, reason, virtue, justice, or pity. As man is becoming more and more tame and domesticated, then the last man on earth will all be alike like a herd of animals. They shall be afraid of danger and peril, which will lead to self-destruction.            In the Zarathustra Prologue, Nietzsche speaks about a crisis that is being shared by the existing humanityâ€â€the crisis of being contented with comfort alone; being as comfortable and contented as to resist the utilization of strong, positive goals in one’s existence. Each section of ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ carries with it essential points to consider, especially the Prologue section and Parts 1-3. What are these essential points? How do they all blend together to come up with the whole thought or proclamation of Nietzsche? In the end, we shall come up with the answers to these questions, together with the essential points that create Nietzsche’s preaching of nihilism. In this world of materialism and nihilism (as Nietzsche declared), is God really dead? Main Body The Crisis of Existing Humanity            In the Prologue section of ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra,’ Nietzsche speaks about a crisis that lingers in all of humanity today. Zarathustra speaks that saints are too proud and love only God and not men, as stated in the lines: â€Å"Now I love God: men, I do not love. Man is a thing too imperfect for me. Love to man would be fatal to me†(Nietzsche 21). He also stated that acts of charity should go after acts of beseech: â€Å"If, however, thou wilt give unto them, give them no more than an alms, and let them also beg for it†(Nietzsche 21). This points out that acts of charity are done for the sake of pride and self-worthiness. When Zarathustra speaks that â€Å"God is dead†(Nietzsche 22), he meant that God does not exist in this world anymore, even on people whom we think should have made God more alive. Secondly, Zarathustra speaks that people have made a shame of themselves: â€Å"Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes†(Nietzsche 22). He preaches that the way to go is to be the Superman, which Zarathustra speaks as â€Å"the meaning of the earth†(Nietzsche 22) and the â€Å"herald of the lightning, †¦ a heavy drop out of the cloud†(Nietzsche 25). People are in crisis because much of life is centered on life after death and not on the present life on earth. Happiness, reason, virtue, justice, and pity appear to be useless and should not be centered on, since self-satisfaction of men is being slaughtered, while men cry to heaven for answers to satisfaction, which should only be found on earth.            Thirdly, Zarathustra speaks that â€Å"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Supermanâ€â€a rope over an abyss†(Nietzsche 24). There is crisis and peril in trying to go through the ropeâ€â€the present state of man that should be defeated and prevailed over. Man has succeeded in transforming itself from a beast to a man, yet there is another significant task for a manâ€â€to transform itself from a man to a Superman. However, the people do not yet understand: â€Å"There they stand †¦ there they laugh: they understand me not†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Nietzsche 25). For this, Zarathustra starts to speak of the ‘last man’ because people are becoming too content and comfortable with their lives they do not see the need to have strong, positive goals anymore. Zarathustra proclaims that, if this will not change, time will come when the trees and the soil will bear no trees; when man will not see a reason to long for and dream; and when man will no longer be capable of giving birth to a star (Nietzsche 26). This inability of the last man to create something that is beyond himself would make the earth smaller and smaller, and the last man becoming weaker and weaker†¦ becoming lazier as days go by. If man is to surpass the crisis that is in the midst, then he should surpass the rope of being a man and learn how to become a Superman. The Principal Parts of the Last Man’s Soul            According to Zarathustra, man is not made up of body and soul; rather, that he is composed only of the body that, on the other hand, is made up of the spirit and the ego, which common people call the ‘soul’ (Nietzsche 40-41). Zarathustra preaches that the ego isâ€â€not saidâ€â€but done (Nietzsche 41). It is the ego that gives a sense of feeling, while it is the spirit, conversely, that discerns what is to be done considering the ego.  These two, the spirit and the ego, continuously attach to one another over one’s existence: â€Å"What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself†(Nietzsche 41). Behind the senses of the ego and the spirit is the Self (or the body), which â€Å"seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit†(Nietzsche 41); yet it appears that the Self is the master of the senses of ego and spirit, as reflected in the following lines: The Self saith unto the ego: Feel pain! And thereupon it suffereth, and thinketh how it may put an end theretoâ€â€and for that very purpose it is meant to think. The Self saith unto the ego: Feel pleasure! Thereupon it rejoiceth, and thinketh how it may ofttimes rejoiceâ€â€and for that very purpose it is meant to think. (41)           In relation to the crisis, this ordering of the principle parts of the last man’s soul leads one to think that the Self is really in the soul, which is not true, according to Zarathustra (since there is no soul). The Self is in the body, and for those who say that Self is in the soul, they are called ‘despisers of the body’ who despise because of their esteem (Nietzsche 41). Through the body, there is spirit; and through the spirit, there is worth and will. The Self, however, should be made to do what it desires mostâ€â€to be that which is beyond itself†¦ to be a Superman on earth! To be a Superman needs a special kind of selfishnessâ€â€the healthy and holy type of selfishness that â€Å"constrain[s] all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love†(Nietzsche 76). In this selfishness there is no lust or craving but true virtue that elevates the body and enraptures the spirit (Nietzsche 76). This new virtue brings power and knowledge through what he calls the ‘Will to Power’. This is what drives the powerful into wanting obedience and change. Zarathustra calls it â€Å"the unexhausted, procreating life-will†(Nietzsche 108), and together with worth and will, this is also what the last man lacks nowadays. People are unaware of the healthy and holy selfishness, which is why he cannot create beyond himself. The Way to Redemption            Zarathustra, as a teacher, tries to correct the conflicting understanding of these notions by doing the following: first, by finding his own disciples and teaching them before sending them on their own to find their Will to Power and virtue, which should both be overflowing in order for them to preach or share it with others; and second, by preaching to the most uncommon men (i.e., hunchback, the cripples, the blind men) who live apart from the rest of the people. However, because man has turned his back against the Will to Power, Zarathustra claims that there is suffering on earth as penalty for the negligence: â€Å"Everything perisheth, therefore everything deserveth to perish†(Nietzsche 132). Yet the past is past. Even the Will to Power has no power to bring back time; thus, there is suffering. But there is what is called ‘courage’ that slays giddiness, suffering, and death (Nietzsche 143). As stated, â€Å"Courage, however, is the best slayer, courage which attacketh†(Nietzsche 143). By possessing courage, man is on his way to redemption to find his Will to Power and his virtue, for the Self to find its worth and will in the spirit. At that moment, he will have the power to create beyond himselfâ€â€a being that even death, giddiness, and suffering is unable to tear down. Conclusion            â€Å"[T]ruth is always on the side of the more difficult.†–Friedrich Nietzsche in his letter to his sister, 1865 (Nietzsche&Kaufmann 29)            In Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra,’ he speaks about a crisis that is being shared by the existing humanity. There is crisis because of the following essential points: first, the non-existence of God in this world; second, the centering on life after death; third, the suffering of self-satisfaction; fourth, the longing for contentment and comfort; fifth, the lack of strong, positive goals and courage; sixth and last, having a smaller world with weaker men. With the Self as the master of the ego and the spirit, a man should not despise his body because of esteem, especially that it is the body that builds the spirit, which then builds both worth and will. Without the body, there is no spirit, worth, will, and the ego. To be a Superman is to be selfish enough to gain in knowledge and in power, yet how can all be possible without virtue and Will to Power? To have Will to Power in a changing and suffering world, however, there is a drastic need for courage. This is the way to the redemption of mankind†¦ to have the courage in wiping away suffering and pain, which has been inflicted on mankind as penalty for its negligence. Despite the past being irrevocable, man will no longer fall to self-destruction, as he has learned to go well beyond himself. Works Cited Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Translated by Thomas Common. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University, 1999. Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Kaufmann. The Portable Nietzsche. New York, NY: Penguin Group, Inc., 1977.
Saturday, January 4, 2020
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