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The Meaning Of Life: The Story Of A Good Brahmin

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The Meaning of Life: The Story of a Good Brahmin
Francois-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire was one of the greatest writers of France, despite the controversy that surrounded him. Voltaire’s style of writing is filled with satire and irony in the ways that he attacked the philosophies of others. He fought against the injustices of the world during his time by using his words; Voltaire comprised many plays, novels, and essays that often began with conversational prefaces. In “The Story of a Good Brahmin,” Voltaire explores the meaning of life by analyzing reason, ignorance, and how they relate to the nature of one’s soul.
The plot of The Story of a Good Brahmin is one that is easy to understand, and it tells of a man and woman that live two very different lives, even just a few steps apart. The old Brahmin was a wealthy intellectual that enjoyed philosophizing; the old woman was impoverished, not well educated and very set in her ways. The story is told from the point of a concerned and curious narrator that allows for the reader to share in the conflict that is unfolding to understand the meaning of life.
For Example: One day the Brahmin said to me: ‘I wish I had never been born.’ On my asking him why, he replied: ‘I have been studying for forty years, which is to say forty wasted years; I teach others yet am ignorant of everything; this state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust that my life is intolerable. I was born into Time, I live in
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