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Guilt Thesis

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Comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said, “Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it. As you make each passage from youth to adulthood to maturity, sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on to that bar in front of you.” Guilt can make you do insane things to yourself and others throughout life, and that pain can make you feel as if you are on a roller coaster going downhill and never coming back up. Jane Brody’s “Guilt: Or Why it’s Good to Feel Bad” article explores the good and bad of this deep feeling. The people in the society from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, The Scarlet Letter, support the ideas in the article. Hester Prynne had a child with Reverend Dimmesdale although she was married to a doctor in England named …show more content…

This feeling encourages people to help someone in need which is not only good for them, but it helps yourself as well. You can make a difference for someone and allow them to improve and build a stronger life. Helping connects us together just like how guilt can make you want to repair your bond. This allows a person to create a stronger and happier society for the people and bring them closer together. Guilt also has the ability to stop one from doing wrong against someone or something. An unnecessary violent action can be prevented due to the effect of guilt. Guilt is an emotion that most people have after doing something they know they shouldn’t. A single situation, like the one in The Scarlet Letter, can involve the whole community. Jerry Seinfeld has also been known to say, “When someone does a small task beautifully, their whole environment is affected by it.” The same goes for when someone makes a major mistake. Life is a roller coaster. There are ups and there are downs. One action can change a society for the better, however it can also change it for the

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857 Words | 4 Pages

To begin, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes pathos throughout his writing to imprint the importance of individual conscience into the reader 's mind. Hawthorne begins the book by having the reader pity the main character, Hester Prynne, as she is a young, husbandless, mother in a society that shames her for her unfortunate circumstances: “haughty as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung in the street for them all to spurn and trample upon” (Hawthorne, 53). The consistent misfortune of Prynne evokes emotion in the reader and stresses the weight of her decisions. Prynne manages her way through such a hostile society -“Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly on your bosom” (Hawthorne, 188)- in a way that is metaphorically applicable to the real world, allowing the reader to truly connect and understand the character for who they are.

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591 Words | 3 Pages

When a person sees another person suffering it may cause them pain. This constitutes their powerful system of empathy, which hints their thinking that they should do something to relieve the suffering of others. If they cannot help another, or fail in his/her efforts they might experience feelings of guilt. Humans make mistakes and many of them go down a path in their lives that can make them feel guilty later on when they finally recognize their mistake. This is evident in Paul D’Angelo’s self-narrative short story The Step Not Taken, when he the protagonist fails to help a man labeled as “typical junior executive” (D’Angelo) which leads to an epiphany of guilt and shows his true identity.

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1065 Words | 5 Pages

Tharsan Thanapathy Mr. Devereux ENG2D0 18 October 2015 Guilt: A Feeling or Conscience Guilt is part of our conscience, and since humans do not have the technology or knowledge to communicate with it, there is no true understanding of what is right or wrong. Therefore humans go on with our lives without any true understanding of the feelings of guilt. Every day people end up doing actions that they know is wrong and they may not feel bad about it, for example when you lie to get away with something. There is a variety of reasons why one would do this for, one may think they are doing the right thing by saying or doing it, they might lie to someone, or one might even be abiding the law or rules even though they know it is wrong. The law and

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708 Words | 3 Pages

“Guilt is to the spirit, what pain is to the body.” Elder David A. Bednar. This full time missionary has done a good job in effectively and efficiently scratching the surface of the topic of guilt and its inner workings, causes, and effects. Guilt is any feeling of remorse or responsibility for wrongdoing. Similarly, both myself and the characters in Fifth Business experience guilt.

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1363 Words | 6 Pages

Guilt creates inner conflict as well as conflict within relationships and across generations which is seen as destructive. An example of guilt’s destructive capability is the damage that Michael’s guilt over Hanna inflicts on him. Michael’s resulting decision is to “never to take guilt upon myself or feel guilty, never again to love anyone whom it would hurt to lose” which makes him hard-hearted, sabotaging his relationships with others. Even though guilt can be destructive it also encourages people to take responsibility for their actions, to recognize their mistakes and wrongdoings, and to avoid them in the future. For example, the collective guilt that Michael’s generation inherits from the Holocaust emboldens them to accept their parent generations mistakes, know not to follow in their footsteps and condemn Nazi war

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1368 Words | 6 Pages

During the time at which the novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was written, people were help to higher standards regarding what was viewed as acceptable in a society, mostly shown through religious moral standards. Hawthorne was also able to show the effects of guilt specifically during that time, following a sin that was seen as completely unacceptable in this society, and how it would affect someone in their life, especially if kept private. Hawthorne uses literary devices to show how private guilt causes more personal damage than public guilt and how it can become an everlasting punishment. Through the use of diction, Hawthorne is able to show how private guilt causes more personal damage and can have a great internal punishment

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878 Words | 4 Pages

The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.

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1345 Words | 6 Pages

A Guilty Conscience Guilt can cause people to want to give up or quit, but for some, it is used as motivation. Everyone experiences guilt at one point in his or her life whether they did something wrong or did not do enough to help (Barker). Guilt is often used to persuade people to act a certain way. Society uses this and other methods of guilt. Authors use guilt to relate to their readers.

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1675 Words | 7 Pages

Guilt is a product of betrayal. It becomes a constant reminder of a failure in human condition. People are flawed and incapable of perfection. It is human nature to often fail. But what makes people unique is the burden they feel when such failures leads to the sufferings of others.

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675 Words | 3 Pages

From Macbeth feeling “drowned in blood”, to Lady Macbeth not being able to wash her hands, shows how guilt will always come from making bad decisions. One wrong choice can ruin a person's life

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1466 Words | 6 Pages

Many of the characters experience guilt in one way or another throughout the film and the guilt presented stems from multiple characters and situations to others along the way. For instance, consider Edmunds guilt for poisoning his father. After the event and turning to his old school teacher, Henning, who castigates the child in fear of being in fault, Edmund wanders the ruined streets of Berlin and Rossellini paints a vivid picture of his guilt; Edmunds face is dirty and shadowed by his untamed hair and the score supplements this with a mellow and solemn base and occasional violin strings that exemplify the uncertainty of the situation. With the power of this scene, one can assume and feel Edmunds guilt for poisoning his father and as he makes his way up a destroyed building, the viewer can deduce that his suicide is imminent. This explains an evident human toll of guilt and a question of where the fault lies in guilt--was it Henning who suggested the death of Edmunds father or was it Edmund’s father himself who hinted at the idea of

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1707 Words | 7 Pages

Events that occur randomly and that are traumatic can take a toll on all aspects of an individual that endure them, what if an individual were in a gruesome situation and the lives of human beings were lost under their unintentional control? How would they feel for the rest of their lifetime? In the article “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” by Nancy Sherman, she describes the emotional reality of soldiers in their home are often at odds with the civilian public, and are struggling to carry the burden of feeling responsible of traumatic situations. Survivor’s guilt is the bold feeling that survivors have after a tragic event taking place when others have passed away. Soldiers in battle experience losses during combat.

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

Human emotions are very fragile and have extreme consequences on the human psyche. Guilt is one the emotions that can have the most harmful effect on individuals. In Raskolnikov’s case in drove him insane. Raskolnikov feels immediate guilt whenever his rationale for committing the murder is put into question, particularly when he is he kills Lizaveta. The second murder causes Raskolnikov’s guilt, the immediate response was his physical illness, but as that subsided he became increasingly paranoid, especially when something cause him to question his reasoning.

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940 Words | 4 Pages

We all face difficulties in our lives. Often such difficulties can lead us into great depression. A lot of emotions connect to what we do. It affects the way one thinks of viewing his or her life. Yet, if we try we can improve and gain more understanding of ourselves.

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936 Words | 4 Pages

In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)

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