Nathaniel Branden Essays

Ego, a word that has been despised for centuries. It denotes self-absorption, narcissism, and being “stuck up”. It is assumed that people with an ego are very antagonistic and always looking to put others down. While ego may have a negative connotation, it is actually an intrinsic characteristic that allows no two human beings to be completely alike. Ego was motivation for the protagonist of Ayn Rand’s Anthem. Having an ego is not a bad or evil thing. It allows you to be different, to make choices

Trust is something that is very important in our everyday lives. It can help get a promotion or a job at the workplace. It can help build and strengthen relationships among friends. It can create and hold friendships with anybody. Everybody wants to be trusted, because it makes life easier. Consistent liars find it much harder to accomplish tasks because people will probably assume that they are not telling the truth. Being truthful can also help with things such as anxiety because the less someone

Rabbit Proof Fence, directed by Phillip Noyce was set in 1931 and is based on a true story in which three aboriginal girls (Molly, Gracie and Daisy) escape their mission during the stolen generation. The assimilation that took place during the stolen generation and was evident throughout the film. The beginning of the assimilation in the film began with the removal of the girls from their indigenous homes, families and culture. It is further illustrated in the film with the ways the english treat

Birth order is assumed to influence various facets of one’s personality development, character, intelligence and career choices (Stewart et al., 2001). The behavior of the younger or elder in the family .This lead Alfred Adler to study the effects of birth order on personality. Alfred Adler is the founder of Individual Psychology and is first person who considered the influence of birth order on development of personality of an individual. While he described the general features and patterns for

Fundamentally, pride is the moral principle of valuing your self-esteem and taking the steps required to achieve it. You need such a principle because of your profound need for self-esteem, and because a healthy self-esteem, grounded in the facts of reality, is not something you can achieve easily or automatically. Because pride is a commitment to achieving a positive assessment of yourself in the full context of your life, it consists in two essential perspectives: Looking backward and looking forward

Eighteen “Castaways” step out onto a deserted beach, the only sign marking it as their home for the next month is a banner standing before them, a banner which also tells them their tribe name. These contestants come from all different walks of life and most have no idea how to survive in the wild. The only thing connecting them is their willingness to compete for a million dollars.They are on "Survivor", a reality show which pits contestants not only against each other, but against the elements

Abstract Self-esteem has long been considered an essential component of good mental health. It is a widely used concept both in popular language and in psychology. It refers to an individual’s sense of his or her value or worth, or the extent to which a person values, approves of, appreciates, prizes, or likes him or herself. Self-esteem is a set of attitudes and beliefs that a person brings with him or herself when facing the world. During childhood, if individual’s feelings are respected, thoughts

“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me”(Ayn Rand). When The Council tried to restrict the narrator, Equality 7-2521, from being different from his brothers and everyone else in the society, he still continued to think and experiment on his own. Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem, takes place in a future, dystopian society, where the idea of individualism is no longer accepted by society. Throughout the plot, Equality 7-2521 is breaking away from the rules of The City and

In the book Anthem, by Ayn Rand, it tells about a flawless society where everything is gathered and distributed. Eventually the main character escapes the society and lives on his own with everything he can do himself. Ayn Rand went too far when she made the character completely autonomous. Three reasons that support this claim is how they couldn’t make decisions on their own, the way their life was mapped, and how people interact with each other. In Anthem the society did not have any opinion

Power is not evil, it is the user that makes it evil. Machiavelli, a controversial figure in political history left a legacy of brutal reality which disturbed many people. Niccolo Machiavelli’s, The Prince explores the groundbreaking ideas for a prince to secure the leading position in government and retain his power and leadership. Human nature combined with power has the possibility of becoming tragically destructive. However, that wreckage stems from the environment, and the actions displayed

The Nature of Mankind How do you react in the face of fear? Do you freeze, not knowing what to do, or suffice and take action? Are you scared stiff or get away from whatever it is? Maybe you’ve never been faced with this kind of situation. Each person has a different response to these types of circumstances. In the book Anthem, Ayn Rand describes a futuristic world in which “I” does not exist and emotions are not understood. Technology has been put back hundreds of year and people don’t know how

In the short story “The Veldt,” Ray Bradbury writes, “‘And suddenly they realized why those other screams had sounded familiar’” (Bradbury 13). Bradbury chooses these words because they exemplify a compelling ending to the foreshadowing that developed throughout the short story. The screams that originate from the nursery foreshadow the children’s betrayal towards their parents which also depicts a direct correlation to the major themes of the short story. The quote also gives the short story a powerful

The genre of Gothic writing is necessary for people to understand the depth of what people are feeling in a deep way. Gothic writing cannot be described in a way that cannot be described in a way seen with normal writing; however, gothic writing allows this point to be exaggerated. Gothic writing is a genre of writing that was mainly popularized in the Southern United States and other countries have had the same type of writing but it was not classified as Gothic. This theme allows for the points

Rough Draft "We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam." (p. 79). Faber illustrated the ironic element behind the novel Fahrenheit 451, the people 's obsession with obtaining happiness and having equality for all only caused over exaggerated rules against anything that may bring out a unique feeling or quality in someone. Rather than these try hard ideas bringing everyone together, it alienated the beauty of human nature and

Transcendentalism was a literary and philosophical movement in a America that was looking for an identity. The main ideas of transcendentalism are that the individual should be independent and that man is inherently good.They also thought that individuals should find God through nature.Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were the leaders of transcendentalism. Both Emerson and Thoreau wrote about these ideas and expanded them to nature and god. The leader of transcendentalism were looked down

The Innocent and The Evil Categories are everywhere, within schools and novels. Society tends to have the imagery of innocent and harmful people, those who suffer and who benefit. “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak both show prime examples of innocent and harmful people. In these novels, two adjectives are shown throughout in different ways by three key points: overpowerment of a government, loss of individualism, and young love. The power of running

In both “The Devil and Daniel Webster and “The Devil and Tom Walker, they both came face to face with the devil. They had different strategies on how to confront the devil. In the two short stories, the resolution, the depictions of the devil, and the role of religion or the saving grace are the similar and different things. The main idea of both stories is the resolution of what had happened to Daniel and Tom. In the story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” the main character is Daniel Webster

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author and anti-transcendentalist alive in the 1800’s. As an anti-transcendentalist, Hawthorne believed that a person is naturally evil and society is good. Being the great nephew of John Hathorne, one of the judges in the Salem Witch Trials, he became obsessed with puritan society. The puritans were against all earthly possessions, wanting it to be hell on earth, so they could go to heaven. The Scarlet Letter is set in the 1600’s in a puritan society. In his novel

Critical Book Review: The Lightkeeper’s Daughter We are oysters, concealing our tender insides with hard shells. (Lain Lawrence, 2002, P81) The Lightkepper’s Daughter is hitherto the most interesting modern fiction in the recorded history. It is written by Lain Lawrence in 2002. Lain, a Canadian writer who is best known for his creative writing skills since he was in primary school, has been settled on the North Coast (British Columbia) for years. Furthermore, he is currently an avid sailor

The Role of Psychological Realism in Henry James’s Daisy Miller Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James, who was a great fan of George Eliot as he was impressed by her looking into the minds as well the souls of her characters. James’s novels mostly explore the moral dilemmas of people who are compelled to deal with cultural displacement. He is famous for his psychological realism. The purpose of writing this essay is to see the role of psychological realism in Daisy Miller. Though Daisy Miller