Viktor Frankl’s Meaning Through Suffering For the duration of human existence, there have been shared characteristics that are innate to humans. These characteristics are centred around giving meaning to one’s life and questioning one’s existence. These questions of existence have been pondered by all of humanity, from some of the greatest thinkers to the average human being.…
. I think that Ivan's epiphany was when he realized that the selflessness that he did was a better life than the wrong of the aristocracy. “The knowledge that he has wasted his life only intensifies Ivan’s suffering and further estranges him from his family. However, a sudden change occurs when Ivan feels himself pulled the black sack and emerges into a world of light” (Williams, Michael V.). Gabriel’s epiphany happens toward the end of “The Dead” in which he thinks about the fullness and the belief of death.…
Alone.” This quote shows the reader that Ivan has been isolated from his own kind. By counting the days of being in captivity, it shows Ivan is very observant. By observing others, he was able to learn the English…
The pages that precede 158 show Vlad’s testimony put to momentary rest with him and his wife, Anja, landing in Auschwitz. Art’s story, which actually encompasses Vlad’s, also ends dramatically. It is here where the reader can witness what genocide and certain aucrasities can push a person to feel, think, and do. Art is repulsed by his father for burning all of Anja’s diaries. The images seen on page 159 show Art’s disbelief and anger towards his father.…
The characters were very self centered and selfish for their pursuit of their individual happiness, hurting others that were around them. After Ivan’s romance with his wife began to rub away, his selfish pursuits began to become a problem to his family. Ivan started arguing with his wife more often, not caring for what she wants, and later hating just her presence near him. He thought that he had to fit into his social norms and socioeconomic class in order for him to be happy, and he willingly tried his best to do so. Since Ivan lived such an ideal life in accordance to society, it was terrible as quoted in chapter 2…
The limits the human body and spirit can take is, again, astounding, and is always more than one would expect. I feel it would do a disservice to those who have lived through dire situations like those that Ivan had gone through if I would compare his story to situations in my own life. Not once in my life have I gone through situations like those that he did. I have never experienced extreme hunger, nor have I ever had to worry about surviving in extreme…
When Dimitri is arrested for Fyodor’s murder, Ivan feels guilty and defensively says “I’m not my brother’s keeper,” but Ivan finally accepts the guilt. Digging even deeper into Ivan’s childhood, it is apparent that in contrast to Alyosha, who we earlier discussed was carefree of where he lived, Ivan has alway been conscious and critical of these things. Therefore, he naturally possessed the inclination of an intellectual mind. However, what further complicates Ivan is a combination between a brilliant analytical mind and a heart that loves humanity but only shows concern on scholarly critics who distances himself from directly interacting in a loving manner with people. This intellectual and detached characteristic contrasts the active love Father Zosima teachers and Alyosha practices.…
By breaking through his selfishness and cowardice as though “he fell through the hole and there at the bottom was a light,” (Tolstoy 155) Ivan Ilych comes to an appreciation that love holds more importance than social status and propriety. He becomes a hero to the reader because he discerns that only love remains when all other material possessions waste away. In the final hours of his life, the love from Ivan Ilych’s son shines through his suffering and humbles him because he recognizes that his selfishness developed into a cruel impediment to his family’s happiness. Therefore, dying becomes Ivan Ilych’s greatest act of heroism because he abandons his self-centeredness and bravely sacrifices himself to relieve the burden he places on his family.…
This idea of suffering day by day was also found in, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, where Ivan…
In the opening portions of the novel, we observe drastic conflicts of opinions. The novel opens by showing how nihilism evokes certain responses in the older landowning family of the Kirsanovs. We want to see their basic philosophy of nihilism in action in many types of situations. Following this, Turgenev must move to another scene in which we can observe the same nihilistic theories in practice in another environment Furthermore, here Bazarov comes into conflict with a representative of the old school of…
In the play “The Crucible” written by Arthur Miller we see many themes and lessons in the story. The main theme is focussed on deceit and lying and how lies can lead down a dark road which results in the ruin of many. The Crucible is a fictional play based on the Salem Witch Trials which occurred between February 1692 and May 1693 and resulted in over 150 people being accused of witchcraft and 20 executed. The story focusses on the story of John Proctor and Abigail Williams, his niece, and how lies, jealousy, revenge, and deep seated feuds caused a community to turn on each other in a vicious circle of accusations and misunderstandings. The characters in the play who lie significantly are Abigail, John Proctor, and Mary Warren…
His pain was constant, “quiet, serious, and insistent,” (Tolstoy, 88). Ivan’s appearance deteriorates throughout the novella and his eyes begin to present “not a spark of life within them,” (Tolstoy, 86). Throughout his life, Ivan constantly avoided his suffering. When his marriage became an inconvenience, he escaped by growing “more attached to his job, and more ambitious than ever,” (Tolstoy, 57). However, his illness provides an anguish that is not so easily escapable.…
“But hardly had he succeeded in regaining a straight face than he glanced again, as if involuntarily, at Razumikhin, and broke down once more: the smothered laughter burst out all the more uncontrollably for the powerful restraint he had put on it before” (Dostoevsky 210). In an attempt to maintain his facade of an innocent man, Raskolnikov intentionally laughs at Razumikhin as they approach Porfiry’s door. Fearful that Porfiry will deceive him, Raskolnikov presents himself as a carefree man to dissolve any of Porfiry’s impressions. The calculated “involuntary” glances he shares with Razumikhin reveal the extent to which he can play the role of an innocent man (Dostoevsky 210).…
Lastly, within both works, the struggle for a sense of cultural identity is also the struggle for oneself. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera utilizes the political setting of his work to evaluate the influence of cultural identity on his characters. When Tereza and Tomas return to a Czech spa after the Russian invasion, Tereza notes that its appearance is just as it was six years ago; however, in a show of passive resistance, Czech people remove street signs to disorient their invaders. Tereza retrospects, “Hindsight now made the anonymity seem quite dangerous to the country”(166). Just as the buildings and roads in this Czech town, including the spa, are currently adorned with Russian names since they cannot return to their former…
A parent dying has to put a person into a dark place, it takes a less cynical person to be able to believe in such a far-fetched idea in that period in someone’s life. Even after arrests he never backs down his commitment to a brighter future s unflinching. The line “every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring, trembling noises into the smoke-begrimed and greasy atmosphere of the workingmen’s suburb; and obedient to the summons of the power of steam, people poured out of little gray houses into the street” (Gorky, 4) shows Pavel’s home as a grim, hopeless place and the line “Living a life like that for some fifty years, a workman died” (Gorky, 5) portrays the people of the small town as in total submission to having a gloomy life. Even at the end of the story he still radiates optimism, when Pavel speaks in a futile situation during court, he looks at the positive side of the situation. Pavel attempts to “’merely try to explain to you what you don’t understand’”…