My favorite book from this semester has to be the Grand Inquisitor by Fyoder Dostoevsky. First off, what compelled me to pick this book was the originality of the content by having the Grand Inquisitor appear to conversate with Jesus Christ. However, more specifcally, I appreciated the main themes like the ideas that the masses are innately naïve, a majority of people would rather be told what to do rather than to follow their own logic, and people are satisfied as long as they are comfortable. The idea of the masses seeking refuge and protection over their freedom due to being unintelligent is mentioned frequently in the Grand Inquisitor.
A ghoul is a being of pure evil, one with no soul, a foul disgusting thing that desires to be the most horrific being it can be like Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible was the Tsar of Russia from 1533 to 1584. He was a ruthless, cunning evil being who killed and brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people. The Tsar ordered people to be beheaded, strangled, hanged, blinded, burned, stabbed, boiled, disemboweled, buried alive, impaled, and fried. The Villain would often force parents to watch the execution of their children.
The definition of fearless is lacking of fear. Fear is being afraid of something or someone is going to cause pain or grief. There are so many words to that could be used to descride someone that is fearless. Many people who are fearless have embraced their fears to overcome them. Sometimes people face their fears because they are selfless.
He believes that Christ resisted Satan because he wanted man to be free, but, according to the Grand Inquisitor, Christ made a mistake. Since man has the ability to choose, he will choose poorly and suffer as a consequence. The Grand Inquisitor views are paternalistic in that he believes it is best for the burden of choice should be placed upon him instead of man. Man will then be able to will to live happily instead of trying to live up to the high standards of Christ teachings. The teachings of Christ only benefits those few who are strong enough to follow through with them continuously in every aspect of their lives.
By using his religion as sanction, he could be a cruel and inhumane man while still having support. The alteration of kind to cruel is an important component to prove the dehumanizing effects of slavery on slaveholders. This characterization provides a powerful argument that slavery is not only bad for slaves, but slave owners
Sansom writes, “He faces his mortality and realizes the failure of constructing a life on preferences and abstract relationships” (421). Shallow relationships and a focus on outward appearance lead to a neglect of Ivan’s actual purpose. In this time of Ivan grappling with death, Tolstoy proposes the idea that before we die “the choice is not how to act in ways so that we can control our death and question the meaning of life, but whether there is a reality to which we can find real value as individuals that is not nullified by the existential syllogism” (Sansom 424). The control that he sought as a way to defend himself against chaos does not lead him to peace; instead, it disappoints him and helps move Ivan to a place of deeper understanding. At the very end during an interaction with his son, Ivan finally “empties himself of meaningless false images of human purpose, [and] he then sees how to respond honestly with integrity to his destiny” (Sansom 427).
Throughout the “Narrative of Fredrick Douglass”, Douglass develops an image between true and false Christianity. Douglass elaborates his point in the opening appendix, calling the former “the Christianity of Christ” and the latter “the Christianity of this land.” Douglass describes the ordeal that slaveholders’ Christianity is not a given evidence of natural goodness, but an artificial state of self-righteous brutality. To tackle this distinction, Douglass states a basic contradiction between the charitable, peaceful beliefs of Christianity and the violence from the immoral actions of slaveholders. The character that is described as a good example for this theme is Thomas Auld.
The Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller describing the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. It prompts the reader to wonder what the causing factors were for these events to take place. There are many ways to answer this question, although paranoia in the Puritan community played a major role in the downfall of the town. Paranoia came from jumping to conclusions, the fear of the devil, and superstition, and it caused the downfall of Salem, Massachusetts.
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, we’re introduced to the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. The town is governed by a Theocracy which means god is the almighty ruler. After Betty, last living daughter of Reverend Parris, falls “inert” (Act I pg. 3) and panic breaks out as the Girls of Salem are to soon be accused of witchcraft. Once Tituba and Abigail confess (Act I pg. 40-46) that people in the town are witches the stage has now been set.
The drinking turns into rage and Tom fights with Myrtle and breaks her nose. Soon after this Nick is invited to Gatsby’s party, which he has every weekend. Nick finds out that he was the only one with an invitation. People normally just show up. Nick bumps into Jordan Baker
“I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering.” said Ivan to his brother Alyosha after reflecting on the unjust evil innocents face because of humanity’s sinful actions. Ivan’s words shed light to the idea of idealism versus reality. Realizing that cruelty is present in the lives of the most innocent, lead me to assert that evil is a real problem as it intervenes between the harmonic and idealistic view that the world consists of genuine, good people.
“Master and Man” (1895) is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy is widely ranked among the greatest writers of all time with such classics as War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1877), and the novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886). His output also includes plays and essays. In “Master and Man,” Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a landowner, departs from the village of Kresty for a short journey with Nikita, one of his peasants.
To what extent does the nature and form of a film and literature influence what is or is not presented as “reality?” How do we define what is considered as realism and what isn’t?In the world of realism we find ourselves engulfed in an attitude of living in the moment. By this I mean in regards to realism, we deal with situations as they arise. We do not plan or fabricate or use emotions; we use logic. We see this realism prevalent in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground.
This can be seen in “One thing and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ, […]” (pg 5). This human condition of freedom can first be seen in the title of one of his famed work’s title “On Christian Liberty” which
The concept of freedom constantly rings throughout the texts of Alexander Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman and Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat. These stories are both key elements of Russian literature and Russian history. During 19th century Russia, there was a prominent distinction that many peasants and people of lower class didn’t have the rights that the bourgeoisie potentially possessed. There are also freedoms that do reign on the main characters of these pieces as they go along in their respective plots. Points of freedom resonate with the protagonists as well as a dissolution of freedom that is constantly referenced throughout the stories, respectively.
