The Irony In The Truman Show English Literature Essay

The Irony In The Truman Show English Literature Essay Truman from The Truman Show and Meursault from The Stranger both have things that foreshadow their ultimate choices in life, which include symbolism, existential themes, and irony. In The Truman Show , there is irony present throughout the whole movie. During most of the film, Truman wanted to leave Seahaven and go explore the world. He had a desire to do more than just live a quaint, common life. He is unique, and it is his motivation that makes him stand out. His enduring determination helped him find the answer. For example, he almost drowned during a storm while sailing, but he persisted on. Truman got an answer, but it may not have been the answer he was searching for. Once Truman learned that his life was a television show, he realized he would not be as unique if he left. He would not be the center of attention, and now wants to be just an ordinary person outside of Seahaven. There also irony present throughout The Stranger, as Meursault also has somewhat of an epiphany towards the end of the novel. Throughout the story, Meursault is indifferent to many things and does not show strong moral values. For example, he kills a man without strong reasoning. After getting sentenced to death, he truly realizes why he is getting punished for his actions. He understands what will happen to him and accepts it. Ironically, instead of having moral thoughts or feelings of remorse, he believes that hatred of him would make him feel less alone. However, he realizes he becomes happier when he better understands human existence and purpose. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself-so like a brother, really-I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to fe el less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate, (Part 2, Chapter 5, P.123). He feels lonely, and it is the hate from the crowd of spectators that help him feel less alone. Meursault faced a lot of things like an existentialist. For example, he was ready to accept his consequence after he shot the Arab. He also was ready for death, knowing it is inevitable. Some existential themes include freewill, controlling your own fate, accepting your fate, and taking responsibility for your own actions. These themes are all present in The Stranger. It was the freewill that led him to shooting the Arab, because he was in total control. He chose his fate, accepted the consequences, and took responsibility for what he did. For example, he realized he was going to die, and accepted it. There are also existentialist themes in The Truman Show. Although the shows creator, Christof, tried to keep Truman in Seahaven, he ultimately could not. Trumans freewill and control of his own fate led him to discovering the truth about Seahaven, and thus controlling the outcome of his life. He accepted the reality of his life being centered around a television show, but moved on by leaving Seahaven. Although Trumans artificial world came to an end, he entered reality as he left Seahaven. Symbolically, Trumans fake world coming to an end was foreshadowed by a previous event. The light fixture that fell as Truman left his home symbolized things starting to fall apart. Shortly after this even, there were more examples that caused him to be suspicious and doubtful of the world around him. Another great example of symbolism in the film was the unfinished bridge that Truman and Marlon had conversations on. Truman was always uncertain of something when he spoke to Marlon on the bridge, and it could represent Trumans unfulfilled life and uncertainty. Although Trumans life was unfulfilled in his eyes, there is something that foreshadows him traveling in the future and discovering something. The name of his sailboat was the Santa Maria, which was a famous boat that Columbus sailed to America on. This foreshadowed Truman leaving the town of Seahaven to explore a completely new world. There is much symbolism present in The Stranger as well. For example, Mersault does not like being uncomfortable, especially from the weather. Many perceive the sun as a source of warmth, sometimes beauty, but Meursault dislikes the heat. The sun normally brings joy, emotional warmth or comfort to an individual, but Meursault seems to dislike feeling emotional in any way. He also dislikes heat from the sun. The sun was a barrier of Mersaults emotions. It also led him to murder. While walking on the beach, Meursault encountered the Arab again. The Arab reflected light off of his knife from the sun. Meursault thought to himself, All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, instinctively, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes, (Part 1, Ch.6, P.59). Right after this, he shot and killed the Arab. It seems like the little emotions that Meursault had took over his actions. Before walks up to the Arab and shoots him, Meursault thinks to himself, It occurred to me that all I had to do was turn around and that would be the end of it. But the whole beach, throbbing in the sun, was pressing on my back. I took a few steps toward the spring, (Part 1, Ch.6, P.58).However, towards the end of the novel he did gain some morals and understood much more about life. When he did, he looked into the window, with the sun shining behind it, and gazed at his reflection: I moved closer to the window, and in the last light of day I gazed at my reflection one more time, (Part 2, Ch.2, P.81). As you can see, existential themes, symbols and irony not only foreshadow, but affect Meursaults and Trumans ultimate choices in life.

Political Philosophy and Individualism Essay

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that emphasizes â€Å"the moral worth of the individual†. Individualists promote the exercise of one’s goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one’s own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism makes the individual its focus and so starts â€Å"with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation. † Individualism thus involves â€Å"the right of the individual to freedom and self-realization†. An individualist enters into society to further his or her own interests, or at least demands the right to serve his or her own interests, without taking the interests of society into consideration. The individualist does not lend credence to any philosophy that requires the sacrifice of the self-interest of the individual for any higher social causes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau would argue, however, that his concept of â€Å"general will† in the â€Å"social contract† is not the simple collection of individual wills and precisely furthers the interests of the individual (the constraint of law itself would be beneficial for the individual, as the lack of respect for the law necessarily entails, in Rousseau’s eyes, a form of ignorance and submission to one’s passions instead of the preferred autonomy of reason). Individualists are chiefly concerned with protecting individual autonomy against obligations imposed by social institutions (such as the state or religious morality). (Encyclopedia Britannica) Individualism, political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Individualism once exhibited interesting national variations, but its various meanings have since largely merged. Following the upheaval of the French Revolution, individualisme was used pejoratively in Franceto signify the sources of social dissolution and anarchy and the elevation of individual interests above those of the collective. The term’s negative connotation was employed by French reactionaries, nationalists, conservatives, liberals, and socialists alike, despite their different views of a feasible and desirable social order. In Germany, the ideas of individual uniqueness (Einzigkeit) and self-realization—in sum, the Romantic notion of individuality—contributed to the cult of individual genius and were later transformed into an organic theory of national community. According to this view, state and society are not artificial constructs erected on the basis of a social contract but instead unique and self-sufficient cultural wholes. In England, individualism encompassed religious nonconformity (i. e. , nonconformity with the Church of England) and economic liberalism in its various versions, including both laissez-faire and moderate state-interventionist approaches. In the United States, individualism became part of the core American ideology by the 19th century, incorporating the influences of New England Puritanism, Jeffersonianism, and the philosophy of natural rights. American individualism was universalist and idealist but acquired a harsher edge as it became infused with elements of social Darwinism (i.e. , the survival of the fittest). â€Å"Rugged individualism†Ã¢â‚¬â€extolled by Herbert Hoover during his presidential campaign in 1928—was associated with traditional American values such as personal freedom,capitalism, and limited government. As James Bryce, British ambassador to the United States (1907–13), wrote in The American Commonwealth (1888), â€Å"Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom have been deemed by Americans not only their choicest, but [their] peculiar and exclusive possession. † The French aristocratic political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) described individualism in terms of a kind of moderate selfishness that disposed humans to be concerned only with their own small circle of family and friends. Observing the workings of the American democratic tradition for Democracy in America (1835–40), Tocqueville wrote that by leading â€Å"each citizen to isolate himself from his fellows and to draw apart with his family and friends,† individualism sapped the â€Å"virtues of public life,† for which civic virtue and association were a suitable remedy. For the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97), individualism signified the cult of privacy, which, combined with the growth of self-assertion, had given â€Å"impulse to the highest individual development† that flowered in the European Renaissance. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) identified two types of individualism: the utilitarian egoism of the English sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), who, according to. Durkheim, reduced society to â€Å"nothing more than a vast apparatus of production and exchange,† and the rationalism of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1788), and the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), which has as â€Å"its primary dogma the autonomy of reason and as its primary rite the doctrine of free enquiry. † The Austrian economist F. A. Hayek (1899–1992), who favoured market processes and was distrustful of state intervention, distinguished what he called â€Å"false† from â€Å"true† individualism. False individualism, which was represented mainly by French and other continental European writers, is characterized by â€Å"an exaggerated belief in the powers of individual reason† and the scope of effective social planning and is â€Å"a source of modern socialism†; in contrast, true individualism, whose adherents included John Locke (1632–1704), Bernard de Mandeville (1670–1733), David Hume (1711–76), Adam Ferguson (1723–1816), Adam Smith (1723–90), and Edmund Burke(1729–97), maintained that the â€Å"spontaneous collaboration of free men often creates things which are greater than their individual minds can ever fully comprehend† and accepted that individuals must submit â€Å"to the anonymous and seemingly irrational forces of society. † Other aspects of individualism pertain to a series of different questions about how to conceive the relation between collectivities and individuals. One such question focuses on how facts about the behaviour of groups, about social processes, and about large-scale historical events are to be explained. According to methodological individualism, a view advocated by Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper (1902–94), any explanation of such a fact ultimately must appeal to, or be stated in terms of, facts about individuals—about their beliefs, desires, and actions. A closely related view, sometimes called ontological individualism, is the thesis that social or historical groups, processes, and events are nothing more than complexes of individuals and individual actions. Methodological individualism precludes explanations that appeal to social factors that cannot in turn be individualistically explained. Examples are Durkheim’s classic account of differential suicide rates in terms of degrees of social integration and the account of the incidence of protest movements in terms of the structure of political opportunities. Ontological individualism contrasts with various ways of seeing institutions and collectivities as â€Å"real†Ã¢â‚¬â€e. g. , the view of corporations or states as agents and the view of bureaucratic roles and rules or status groups as independent of individuals, both constraining and enabling individuals’ behaviour. Another question that arises in debates over individualism is how objects of worth or value (i. e. , goods) in moral and political life are to be conceived. Some theorists, known as atomists, argue that no such goods are intrinsically common or communal, maintaining instead that there are only individual goods that accrue to individuals. According to this perspective, morality and politics are merely the instruments through which each individual attempts to secure such goods for himself. One example of this view is the conception of political authority as ultimately derived from or justified by a hypothetical â€Å"contract† between individuals, as in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Another is the idea, typical in economics and in other social sciences influenced by economics, that most social institutions and relationships can best be understood by assuming that individual behaviour is motivated primarily by self-interest. Individualism with its endorsement of private enjoyments and control of one’s personal environment and its neglect of public involvement and communal attachment, has long been lamented and criticized from both the right and the left and from both religious and secular perspectives. Especially notable critiques have been made by advocates of communitarianism, who tend to equate individualism with narcissism and selfishness. Likewise, thinkers in the tradition of â€Å"republican† political thought—according to which power is best controlled by being divided—are disturbed by their perception that individualism deprives the state of the support and active involvement of citizens, thereby impairing democratic institutions. Individualism also has been thought to distinguish modern Western societies from premodern and non-Western ones, such as traditional India and China, where, it is said, the community or the nation is valued above the individual and an individual’s role in the political and economic life of his community is largely determined by his membership in a specific class or caste.

Narrative Essay on the Life of Frederick Douglass Essay

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Frederick Douglass recounts his life of slavery and his eventual flight to freedom. When he was a youngster he was placed in a household in which the naive mistress started to teach him to read. Her efforts were halted by her husband and young Douglass recalled his lecture on the reasons slaves should not be educated. However the brief lessons placed within Douglass the desire to continue to learn, by whatever means possible, to read and to write. He had discovered that education and literacy was to be his â€Å"pathway from slavery to freedom. † Douglass illustrates that literacy is the most important asset a man can ac-quire if he is to achieve life-changing goals. Douglass’ new ambition to become literate had both positive and negative effects. His new desire filled him â€Å"high hope and a fixed purpose† and his life was fundamentally changed from that early time in life. His quest for literacy was fueled with confidence that his future life would be radically different and better once he had mastered reading and writing. However it was not without negative effects as well. The more he learned of slavery the more he hated his own condition and the slave-owners that created it. As his masters became aware of his ability he was constantly watched as they tried to prevent him from reaching his goal. For a slave the path to literacy was very difficult. However the path to literacy led Douglass to consequences he could not have im-agined. An entirely new world was opened for him, and with literacy came knowledge of a life that slaves had been denied. With literacy eventually came knowledge of religion and the great Abolition movement. The greatest consequence of literacy was freedom of the mind and freedom of thought, and literacy became for Douglass the tool with which he would become his own â€Å"master†. Literacy was for Douglass and other slaves a power which they had been denied. Ignorance and illiteracy were tools more powerful than the whip and chains, and were used effectively by the slave-owners to keep slaves in submission. The slave owners un-derstood this and feared literate and educated slaves who would now know there is no truth in the slave-owner’s belief that they â€Å"should know nothing but to obey his master. † Slave owners knew the desire for literacy would spread among the slaves and would be the essential method for their eventual freedom. It was a power the slave owners were not willing to give to their slaves. Douglass defines literacy not only by describing the obvious ability to read and write, but shows true literacy as the ability to understand and communicate thoughts, de-sires, and emotions. Douglass shows literacy as being the true bond between free men and the method to unite against slavery and oppression. Literacy unites man while ignorance and illiteracy keeps man isolated from the rest of the world. Although Narrative was written over one hundred and sixty years ago it still serves as a valid reminder of the power of literacy, which remains the most important as-set a man can acquire. With literacy all things are possible, and without it the illiterate become slaves to ignorance.

The Murder of Roseann Quinn

Roseann Quinn was a 28-year-old school teacher who was brutally murdered in her apartment by a man she had met at a neighborhood bar. Her murder prompted the movie hit, Looking for Mr.Goodbar. Early Years Roseann Quinn was born in 1944. Her parents, both Irish-American, moved the family from Bronx, New York, to Mine Hill Township, New Jersey when Quinn was 11. At age 13 she was diagnosed with polio and spent a year hospitalized. Afterwards she was left with a slight limp, but was able to return to her normal life. Quinns parents were both devout Catholics and raised their children as such. In 1962, Quinn graduated from the Morris Catholic High School in Denville, New Jersey. By all appearances she seemed to get along well with her classmates. A notation in her yearbook described her as, Easy to meet...nice to know. In 1966 Quinn graduated from the Newark State Teachers College and she began teaching at St. Josephs School for the Deaf in the Bronx. She was a dedicated teacher who was well liked by her students. The 1970s In the early 1970s the womans movement and the sexual revolution was beginning to take hold. Quinn adopted some of more liberal points of view of the times, and unlike some of her peers, she surrounded herself with a circle of racially diverse friends from various backgrounds and professions. She was an attractive woman, with an easy smile and an opened attitude. In 1972, she moved by herself into New York City, renting a small studio apartment on the West Side. Living alone seemed to nourish her desire for independence and she would often go to bars alone after work. There she would sometimes read a book while sipping wine. Other times she would meet men and invite them back to her apartment for the night. This promiscuous side of her seemed in direct conflict with her serious, more professional day time persona, especially because often times the men she met seemed on the rough side and lacking in education. Neighbors would later say that fairly regularly Quinn could be heard fighting with men in her apartment. On at least one occasion the fighting turned physical and left Quinn hurt and bruised. New Years Day, 1973 On Jan. 1, 1973, Quinn, as she had on many occasions, went across the street from where she lived to a neighborhood bar called W. M. Tweeds. While there she met two men, one a stock broker named Danny Murray and his friend John Wayne Wilson. Murray and Wilson were gay lovers who had lived together for almost a year. Murray left the bar around 11 p.m. and Quinn and Wilson continued to drink and talk late into the night. Around 2 a.m. they left Tweeds and went to Quinns apartment. The Discovery Three days later Quinn was found dead inside the apartment. She had been beaten over the head with a metal bust of herself, raped, stabbed at least 14 times and had a candle inserted into her vagina. Her apartment was ransacked and the walls were splattered with blood. The news of the grisly murder spread through New York City quickly and soon details of Quinns life, often written as her double life became front page news. In the meantime detectives, who had few clues to go on, released a sketch of Danny Murray to the newspapers. After seeing the sketch Murray contacted a lawyer and met with the police. He told them what he knew including that Wilson had returned to their apartment and confessed to the murder. Murray supplied Wilson with money so he could go to his brothers house in Indiana. John Wayne Wilson On January 11, 1973, police arrested Wilson for the murder of Roseann Quinn. Afterwards details of Wilsons sketchy past were revealed. John Wayne Wilson was 23 at the time of his arrest. Originally from Indiana, the divorced father of two girls, relocated to Florida before going to New York City. He had a lengthy arrest record having served jail time in Daytona Beach, Florida for disorderly conduct and again in Kansas City, Missouri on larceny charges. In July 1972, he escaped from a Miami jail and made it to New York where he worked as a street hustler until he met and moved in with Murray. Although Wilson had been arrested numerous times, there was nothing in his past that indicated that he was a violent and dangerous man. Wilson later made a full statement about the case. He told police that he was drunk the night he killed Quinn and that after going to her apartment they smoked some pot. He became enraged and killed her after she made fun of him for not being able to perform sexually. Four months after his arrest Wilson committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell with bed sheets. Criticism of Police and News Media During the Quinn murder investigation, police were often quoted in a way that made it appear the Quinns lifestyle was more to blame for her murder than the murderer himself. A protective voice from the womans movement seemed to curl around Quinn who could not defend herself, speaking up for her right to live the way she wanted, and to keep her as the victim, and not as a temptress whose actions caused her to be stabbed and beaten to death. Although it had little effect at the time, complaints on how the media presented Quinns murder and other women murdered during that time, influenced some change in how respectable news agencies wrote about female murder victims. Looking for Mr. Goodbar Many in New York City remained haunted by the murder of Roseann Quinn and in 1975, author Judith Rossner wrote the best-selling novel, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which mirrored Quinns life and the way she was murdered. Described as a cautionary story to woman, the book became a best seller. In 1977 it was made into a movie starring Diane Keaton as the victim.