The Step Not Taken In the essay The Step Not Taken, the author is a hero engaged in a personal search for answers on how to respond to others’ suffering. He experiences in his search the three stages of a monomyth; separation, struggle, and return. From the beginning of his search to the end, the author changes his views significantly, resulting in an epiphany when he finally realizes he has found the answer he had been looking for. The story begins when the author is separated from his everyday life and is placed in abnormal situation in which he must make a decision. When the man in the elevator with him starts to cry, the author is faced with the decision of either helping the man or giving him his space.
A sudden strained gasp. Turning toward the noise, I was astonished to see the young man drop his briefcase and burst into tears.” This quote introduces the protagonist to his challenge; he is being initiated into the main event of the story which he must internalize, then proceed with an action. The unexpected shock of seeing the stranger cry, and being the only other person in the elevator is the start of this journey. Being confused and unaware of what to do, the protagonist opts to do nothing and thus leading him to his deep-rooted feelings of regret and guilt. “The elevator stopped on the 10th floor and, without looking back, I stepped out.
In the essay, ‘The Step Not Taken’ by Paul D’Angelo, the author depicts a story of a man caught between doing what he feels is the right thing, and doing what makes him comfortable. By analyzing the archetypal structure of the story, the reader clearly sees how the man in the elevator experiences the cycle of the monomyth. The first stage is the separation – upon seeing the other man in the elevator break down in tears, the narrator refuses to rise to the occasion and offer his help. During the struggle, or initiation, the narrator realizes that what he has done by walking away from the elevator without saying a word was the wrong thing to do. And finally, throughout the return and reintegration, the narrator realizes his mistake, and refuses to go back to being the way he was previously.
Morality in “the Step not Taken” by Paul D’Angelo Paul D’Angelo addresses an interesting subject in “The Step not Taken,” through his own personnel monomyth he presents the moral question of whether it is morally right to ignore the obvious suffering of another human being. The story begins with a man entering an elevator with a “junior executive” looking man in an office building, just a normal day with nothing unusual. Just as in the first stage of the monomyth all seems normal with no warning to the approach of a challenge; “then it happened.....I was astonished to see the young man drop his briefcase and burst into tears,” the main character, has now been faced with his quest. Has in true city tradition he ignores the crying man and leaves the elevator, which is his initial refusal. This point in the story signifies the transition from an external journey to an internal struggle of the protagonist.
Many stories throughout literature follow the pattern of a monomyth, depicting the journey of a hero. ‘The Step Not Taken’ by Paul D’Angelo follows the story of a particular hero who’s quest is learning to deal and cope with others suffering. The story follows the three main stages of the monomyth, these stages include separation, struggle or initiation and finally return and reintegration. Within the first paragraph we see the protagonist of the story enter the struggle stage. He describes the process of entering the elevator with such normality as if nothing in his life is about to change; he states ‘Nothing at all to indicate what was about to take place’.
Bradbury uses the symbol of fire to describe much of what is happening to the protagonist. Throughout the novel, he depicts himself as someone who is “dead”. This is portrayed in the quote Granger states to Montag: “Welcome back from the dead (150).” This quote illuminates the dynamic characters past life. A man that consumes himself with ignorance, and a person who is overwhelmed by his wife, and the constant battle to save books. Montag is an humble character that has to deal with people with suicidal problems, and self-righteous people preventing others from receiving the knowledge from books.
In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, Carver sends a deep message to the reader. The narrator in the story has emotional problems. The narrator’s eyes are closed as a result of his ignorance, jealously and prejudice. As a way to escape from reality and his own problems, the narrator uses alcohol and other things. Robert, an old friend from his wife teaches the narrator a great lesson about life and how “learning never ends.” Robert opens the eyes of the narrator.
Paul's journey begins whilst sharing an elevator on the way in to work... “When it happened. A sudden strained gasp. Turning toward the noise, I was astonished to see the young man drop his brief-case and burst into tears” Rather than engage the young man, he takes the path of least resistance and exits the elevator. He stands in the hallway and questions his inaction This refusal to act brings about a mixed bag of emotions dominated by guilt and uncertainty. It's a this point that the benevolent guide intervenes, in Paul's case , his inner-self, representative of the pondering of the many explanations that could have justified the young man's breakdown.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Fall of House of Usher,” Poe wrote constantly of the motifs of the heart, as well as that of madness and insanity. These two works feature elements of lost love and the pain one can feel as a result of a traumatic loss. In the powerful poem “The Raven,” the story tells of a distraught lover; the reader follows the man’s decent into a world of madness. As he displays the loss of his love, Lenore, as the story continues he goes through a world of pain, he sits in a room shut off from the world he once knew, feeling lonely and heartless. As we follow the narrator’s fast decent into madness and loneliness, he keeps mentioning how heartless he realizes now that his lover is gone.
Throughout the novel Dimmesdale’s guilt builds up as he hides his sin. The longer Dimmesdale keeps his sin hidden, the harder it becomes for him to confess his sin. If Dimmesdale continues to keep his guilt hidden it will be near impossible to confess: “If a man wears one mask in public, and another in private he will soon forget which one is real” (Hawthorne 138). Dimmesdale lives a double life. When he is alone he beats and tortures himself because of the deep pain he feels for not confessing his sin.