Caroline Matkom A.P. Psychology Hour 6 “If you live your life the right way, your dreams will come to you.” This quote comes from the energetic, fit, and lively Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. From the cheerful and handsome man standing in front of the lecture hall, one would have never guessed he was admits his final months of a terminating battle with pancreatic cancer. The Last Lecture is indeed the last lecture Dr. Pausch ever performed, a retrospective, reflective testimony of his short yet passionate life. The lecture included varies aspects of Erik Erickson’s stages of psychosocial development, such as the elementary school stage, middle adulthood and late adulthood.
Instructor Helen Chandler English 1301-2023 February 9, 2012 “The last Lecture’s backgroung” The last lecture was for most of the students and readers a seemingly average book written by a writer who was going through a difficult health problem. That writer, Randy Pausch just wanted to let his audience know about his childhood dreams and how he achieved most of them. He shared with readers and listeners in one of his lectures how achieving their dreams is the best way to “live their life well.” However, going deep through the lecture, it is not difficult as an analytic reader, or listener in the case of being part of the speech, to figure out the rhetorical devices used in narration. Regardless, importance of this last lecture, these rhetorical devices were used in a very clever way to provide: clearness, persuasion, and sentimentalism. One impressive tool used was clarity, the structured and choreographed explanation between his personal and professional life, left nothing for the reader to ask for, every paragraph was clear and meaningful; by giving examples and using props to make him even more understandable, and reliable for his audience, Pausch led his readers and listeners right what he wanted.
Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, as has the book he wrote based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all. Themes The Theme is to tell all people to follow their childhood dreams and always live up to their own expectations and not let things get in your path. Setting The Lecture was given at Carnegie Mellon University on September
Authors use themes in their story to give their readers an important message about life. Authors develop themes differently by using literary elements and literary devices. Many stories have a similar themes just like the stories The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Blessings by Mary Hall Surface. In the story The Count Of Monte Cristo the theme is even when times get rough, always have hope for the future. I picked this theme because in the beginning of the story Edmond Dates, a prisoner, is a sad lonely man that wants to die because he has no other prisoner to talk to and he has no hope for getting out of jail.
I say this because since the very beginning of the text the narrator threatened to leave the brother if he didn't touch the coffin, and when the narrator pushed Doddle to stand up and walk. 5. The narrator says that, “renaming my brother was perhaps the kindest thing I ever did for him, because nobody expects much from someone called Doodle.” What does he mean by this quote? The narrator is trying to say that when you hear the name Doodle you would think of someone weak and puny. When the narrator renamed Doodle to William Armstrong you would expect more from him than Doodle.
Not the form of growing up that most young men these days go through, but the growing up a man does when he watches friends die. The growing up that is necessary to stay alive during war. Howard Fast’s quote at the beginning of chapter seven states, “And you’ve lost your youth and come to manhood, all in a few hours....Oh, that’s painful. That is indeed” (111). These words best describes the point I’m making about the theme of this book.
On Thursday October 11, 2012 guest speaker Larry Hirsch presented a lecture of his parent’s survivor story as holocaust survivors. Many would have believed that Larry would have spoken of sadness and death surrounding his parent. Instead, he spoke of how their lives came to be, beginning with his mother because she had deceased at a young age. Larry then spoke in detail of his father and all of the accomplishments he had made with his wife. Their story was very touching and could make a believer out of anyone that no matter what struggle you face in life you can still succeed.
In his book Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez writes on the feelings of grief, anger, and isolation he felt in his growing up separated from his family by his intellect, elaborating on these emotions and overall inspiring his readers, just as William Faulkner designates as the duty of the writer. In his first essay, William expresses just how alone and lost he felt not knowing anyone, as well as not knowing how to communicate with others, finding his only solace to be at home. He changes up the feel of the book in his second essay, when he reverses these feeling entirely, now only finding comfort in his schooling. Lastly, in his third essay, he talks about how it feels to become your own person, to completely break away from your old life, which of course brings about many powerful emotions. In his first essay, Richard describes his isolation from the outside world in vivid detail.
A.D. King remembered on brother’s holiday “How can you be forgotten if you never been known?” asked his widow, Naomi King, 82. “He was always in the background. But I want his memory to live on.” A.D. King’s widow and family have tried to resurrect A.D. King’s memory with the creation of the A.D. King Foundation, which teaches nonviolence in his name. The foundation has also released a documentary on A.D. King’s life. On Monday, when the world celebrates the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., the family of his brother will say a prayer for a figure that has been largely lost in history – King’s younger brother, Alfred Daniel “A.D.” King.
The Evolution of a Hero Our lives are based on our vivid memories of the past. The experiences that we had early on in our childhood of learning to not steal candy from the corner store, or to say please and thank you at the table all intertwine to form our visions of our future. In the novel, The Kite Runner, Amir is a character we observe that has to deal with the painful memories of the past. His main regret of betraying his loyal friend Hassan has haunted his soul for the last 26 years of his life. “It maybe unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometime even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime” (Hosseini 183).