“Can we be men and make an irresponsible ignorance responsible for everything?” (123) In Bartleby’s case, his ignorance and apathy are largely responsible for his eventual death. He regresses mostly by choice. He is ultimately in control of his situation and outcome. J.B., on the other hand, has no control over the sudden, tragic events that have consumed his life. He actively searches for answers to the unexplainable tragedies he experiences.
Harmonium and Nettles Harmonium and Nettles both highlight the theme of memory. As they both are looking back over past memories that are painful, the poems feature the feelings of being helpless in stopping the hurt that was caused. The writer in Harmonium feels remorse for the things he hadn’t said to his father as Armitage states “then mouth in reply some shallow sorry phrase or word too starved of breath to make itself heard”. The writer in Nettles is protective of the recurring threat to his child that he can’t destroy. “rain had called up tall recruits behind the shed,” this quote shows the father cannot destroy them .They differ in the way they felt powerless however as in Nettles the father is feeling powerless because of a physical threat whereas in Harmonium it is an emotional threat of the inevibility of death and unspoken feelings that makes the writer feel powerless.
Through the use of characterization of Jack Gladney, DeLillo expresses the theme that death lurks everywhere and shows the readers how much people fear death. In the novel, Don DeLillo discusses that the character Jack Gladney likes to make himself look weighty to show his authority. In Jack Gladney’s life, the fear of death is a force that drives Jack to suffer with worries and anxiety from his daily life. Jack often worries that his importance as a person in society will be found lacking and unsignificant. Therefore, he likes to surround himself with things that make him look weighty.
Alan’s opening thoughts on his job affect his approach to the performance reviews dramatically. His outlook on the entire situation is very negative and he feels uncomfortable performing these interviews. Even though Alan O’Connor tries to be honest with his employees on what they need to improve, he feels that the employees resent his effort in trying to help them. When in reality, the way Alan goes about communicating the employee’s necessary improvements is why Alan is receiving this impression from his employees. Alan O’Connor’s view on his job fosters a negative work environment because his outlook on his own job is negative itself.
Hamlet finds it difficult to carry out his revenge before he realises that there is a “divinity which shapes us all”, as he is caught up with the concept of death and troubled by his own inability to act. Hamlet is deeply upset by everything which his happening around him, especially his mothers “incestuous’ relationship with Claudius. He is extremely critical of himself, often calling himself a “coward”,” pigeon livered” and “lacking gall” as he cannot just kill
Montag grows increasingly dissatisfied with his life and starts to wonder if perhaps books aren’t so bad. He relies on an old ex-professor named Faber that agrees to work with Montag against the government. Faber says at one point, “Those who don’t build, burn.” What Faber is saying is similar to an old saying- "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." This basically means that people who aren't willing to help or contribute to a group or a society are the ones more likely to make it worse or bring it down, which is what the whole society is doing, for instance the many superficial relationships in the novel, and other real life examples. The novel has numerous examples of superficial relationships, which goes along with what Faber said.
3.05 Fascination with Fear Part A The theme I developed from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial” is Man must ignore the darker possibilities in life in order to survive. Examples from the text include the narrators experience he told about in the story. He awoke to the smell of dirt, nothing but darkness, the feeling of wood all around him, and silence of a sea that overwhelms. Since he cannot open the coffin he thinks he is in, he realizes that he must have fallen under an attack catalepsy in the presence of people who knew not of his condition. He screams, then to be shaken by four people, making him realize he is really in the tiny sleeping berths of a ship.
He also fears what will happen if his father continues to burn down barns. This prevent Sarty from having the foresight to see what he needs to do in order to be content within himself. Fear is a powerful emotion that we must overcome in order to have the foresight to see what has to be done to live a happy, content life. People have the tendency to want to be loyal to family, but when a family member is doing something “wrong,” great internal conflict and fear can arise. Sarty wants to be loyal to his father but knows that the truth must be told.
The negative tone in this source Is the fact of how desperate the men actually were. It says that “these men remained still as the dead to avoid drawing fire till darkness should screen there escape” which shows just what the men had to do. They couldn’t move for hours on end otherwise they would have been
Williams uses symbolism to highlight the attributes of each character and what they represent. The play is constructed so that each character has a defining symbol which resembles their personality. Tom is in distress since his father left him to be the male model in the Wingfield family. He has constant conflicts with Amanda due to the conflicting acts of duty and aspires to pursue his dreams of being a poet. When he returns from the movies he mentions the magician’s trick “We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail.