English Essays

Pearl as a symbol in Scarlet Letter
Pearl as a symbol in Scarlet Letter There is quite a lot of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter and Pearl, Hester Prynne’s daughter, is one of the most important symbols. She is an ambiguous character and she is presented as several symbols. I tried to figure out how she was a gift from God to Hester, but the society thinks she is devil’s child because she is a product of sin and how she is a symbol of the scarlet letter. Pearl is described as extremely beautiful, but lacking c...

Percy Shelley
Percy Shelley On August 4th 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley was born to Timothy and Elizabeth Pillford at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex. Timothy was a member of the Parliament and was the son of Bysshe Shelley. In 1806, he was christened Sir Bysshe Shelley, Baronet. Percy Shelley had five sisters and one brother. In 1802, Shelley attended an all-boys school titled Syon House Academy at Isleworth, which was close to London. After the Academy, he continued his education by attendin...

Perspectives of the Afterlife
Perspectives of the Afterlife Perspectives of the Afterlife Socrates, Epicures, and Cicero all viewed death and the afterlife from very different perspectives. This is possibly because of the different eras in which they lived, and their personal pursuits and beliefs. These perspectives, however are not always contradictory, but often mirror each other’s views. Socrates was of the Hellenic Age. An age in which the Greeks confidently believed that their way of life was...

Philosophy A Discourse on Aristotle
Philosophy - A Discourse on Aristotle Aristotle was born in 384 BC and lived until 322 BC. He was a Greek philosopher and scientist, who shares with Plato being considered the most famous of ancient philosophers. He was born at Stagira, in Macedonia, the son of a physician to the royal court. When he was 17, he went to Athens to study at Plato’s Academy. He stayed for about 20 years, as a student and then as a teacher. When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle moved...

Philosophy Absolute Understanding
Philosophy - Absolute Understanding An elephant was brought to a group of blind men who had never encountered such an animal before. One felt a leg and reported that an elephant is a great living pillar. Another felt the trunk and reported that an elephant is a great snake. Another felt a tusk and reported that an elephant is like a sharp ploughshare. And so on. And then they all quarreled together, each claiming that his own account was the truth and therefore all the...

Philosophy Can Descartes Be Certain He Is Thinking
Philosophy - Can Descartes Be Certain He Is Thinking Can Descartes be certain that he is thinking? How? Can he be certain that he exists? How? (And who is he?) Descartes’ statement “I think therefore I exist” raises questions about the meaning of thought, the meaning of existence but most fundamentally, in what sense he can be certain. The difficulty in establishing the certainty of “I think” and “I exist” is that the two concepts are interrelated. Thus, for exa...

Philosophy Davide Hume
Philosophy - Davide Hume Hume’s Life David Hume was the son of a minor Scottish landowner. His family wanted him to become a lawyer, but he felt an “insurmountable resistance to everything but philosophy and learning”. Mr. Hume attended Edinburgh University, and in 1734 he moved to a French town called La Fleche to pursue philosophy. He later returned to Britain and began his literary career. As Hume built up his reputation, he gained more and more political po...

Philosophy Existence of God
Philosophy - Existence of God Philosophy as defined by our required text is said to be “the love of wisdom. It is the search for the larger picture, the demand for knowledge.” There are many questions in philosophy, many involving the subject of religion. Does God exist? Should we believe in God? Is belief in God justified? These are just some of the questions attempted to be answered in philosophy. Every philosopher has a different opinion on the existence of G...

Philosophy Mills Utilitarianism
Philosophy - Mills Utilitarianism Mill’s Utilitarianism: Sacrifice the innocent for the common good? When faced with a moral dilemma, utilitarianism identifies the appropriate considerations, but offers no realistic way to gather the necessary information to make the required calculations. This lack of information is a problem both in evaluating the welfare issues and in evaluating the consequentialist issues which utilitarianism requires be weighed when making mo...

Philosophy Plato
Philosophy - Plato Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens, Greece. When he was a child his father, Ariston, who was believed to be descended from the early kings of Athens died, and his mother, Perictione married Pyrilampes. As a young man Plato was always interested in political leadership and eventually became a disciple of Socrates. He followed his philosophy and his dialectical style, which is believed to be the search for truth through questions, answers,...

Philosophy Socrates View of Love
Philosophy - Socrates View of Love A Different View of Love We have heard definitions of love through our lives that have been passed on for decades. Some of us have felt love, and some of us have been in love. But no one ever seems to question what love is, as if it is something that just plainly is. People tend to just go with it, and think that what they are feeling is really complete and substantial love. In Plato’s The Symposium, the reader is confronted with some v...

Philosophy Socrates
Philosophy - Socrates Philosophy is a vast field. It examines and probes many different fields. Virtue, morality, immortality, death, and the difference between the psyche (soul) and the soma (body) are just a few of the many different topics which can be covered under the umbrella of philosophy. Philosophers are supposed to be experts on all these subjects. The have well thought out opinions, and they are very learned people. Among the most revered philosophers of all ...

Philosophy The Crito
Philosophy - The - Crito Socrates has thoroughly justified his own decision to obey the opinions of the majority and serve out the sentence that his own city has deemed appropriate for his crimes. At the beginning of this piece, Socrates has presented a period of questions and answers through dialogue with Crito. Throughout the dialogue Socrates is explaining his reasoning for not running from the government. Crito does not understand the madness of Socrates, Crito will d...

Philosophy The Only Truth Existing
Philosophy - The Only Truth Existing “We are, then, faced with a quite simple alternative: Either we deny that there is here anything that can be called truth - a choice that would make us deny what we experience most profoundly as our own being; or we must look beyond the realm of our “natural” experience for a validation of our certainty.” A famous philosopher, Rene Descartes, once stated, “I am, [therefore] I exist.” This statement h...

Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath Which is a Better Portrayal, Anyways? Throughout reading John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and viewing the video The Grapes of Wrath, the reader will begin to question the presentations as to which portrayal of the Great Depression is more realistic and accurate. We all know that the Great Depression was a time of economic struggle in America, as well as a time of war in Germany. Unfortunately America has only viewed the Great Depres...

Of Mice and Men by Danielle
Of Mice and Men by Danielle George Milton has cared for his mentally slow friend, Lennie Small, since the death of Lennie’s Aunt Clara. They travel together to work a various amount of jobs so that one day they will have enough money to live on their own and be their own bosses. Unfortunately, everytime they have a job, Lennie gets into some trouble, which forces them to run away. This time, they are running from a town called Weed to a ranch where they could work as ranch ha...

Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men The book that I have read that has really stayed with me is Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I really enjoyed reading it which is unusual because I usualy don’t enjoy reading to much. There was something about George and Lennie’s friendship that really made me think. Seeing how they were and how they shared life was really intresting. George didn’t have to bother with Lennie, he could have abandoned him and gone on his own way. But he did not ...

Old Man and the Sea
Old Man and the Sea This part of the story has to do with Santiago against nature and the sea. In this part of the story, he goes out and fights nature in the form of terrible forces and dangerous creatures, among them, a marlin, sharks and hunger. He starts the story in a small skiff and moves out in a journey to capture a fish after a long losing streak of eighty-four days. Unfortunately his friend must desert him due to this problem and a greater force, his parents. Santiago ...

On Any Given Sunday
On Any Given Sunday Every Sunday, my friend Moe, and I used to spend our free time at the mall or the town center. The next day, at school, Moe would have pockets full of stationary items such as pens, pencils, etc. to hand out to other people at school. I thought it was no big deal at the time but later on, it got out of hand. One day, we went inside a stationary store called Farr¡¯s. In there, I would often buy a pen or pencil while Moe just walked around. He took such a lon...

Once and future king themes
Once and future king themes T. H. White’s The Once and Future King is one of the most complete and unique portrayals of the immortal legend of King Arthur. Though it has been in print for less than half a century, it has already been declared a classic by many, and is often referred to as the “bible” of Arthurian legend. White recreates the epic saga of King Arthur, from his childhood education and experiences until his very death, in a truly insightful and new...

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Fahrenheit 451
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Fahrenheit 451 The “system” is something that people are always out to change. You see people trying to change it all the time, but few are actually successful at changing the system. The system can be a variety of things. In some cases it is the government, it can be the a boss or basically anything or anyone that has some type of control or authority. For some people fighting the system is their livelihood, their mission in life. ...

One Hundred Years of Solitude 1
One Hundred Years of Solitude Since the beginning of time, man has clung to the notion that there exists some external force that determines his destiny. In Grecian times, the epic poet Hesoid wrote of a triumvirate of mythological Fates that supposedly gave “to men at birth evil and good to have”. In other words, these three granted man his destiny. Clotho “spun the thread of life”, Lacheis distributed the lots, and Atropos with his “abhorred shear...

One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn In Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, the strong themes of hope and perseverance are softened by the realization that for Ivan Denisovich there is little or purpose in life. This doesn’t mean that the themes of hope and perseverance do not exist in the novel. There are numerous instances in the novel where Shukhov is filled with...

Operation Brother
Operation Brother Paper 1: Operation Brother I had just pulled into my driveway on an ordinary Saturday night after finishing my shift at the local drug store photo lab. Every weekend after work I would report in at home and tell my parents the ups and downs of my day, which customers angered me, and why I couldn’t stand my boss. Something was different this night. It wasn’t the cool breeze through the warm summer evening’s air, or even the loud chirping of the cricke...

Ophellia
Ophellia The treatment of Ophelia in the nunnery scene and the treatment of Gertrude in the bedroom scene gives us insight into Hamlets character. In the nunnery scene the treatment of Ophelia shows the character trait of hate and cruelty in Hamlet. “Get thee to a nunnery . . . ” shows the hate he has for Ophelia by comparing her to a prostitute. He also shows cruelty by verbally abusing her through criticism. ” I have heard of your paintings well enou...