Ambrose

Although war is often idealized as an opportunity for wealth and glory, such aggressive patriotism only results in death in the end. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, Bierce communicates the idea that war brings only death and anguish by utilizing literary devices in order to convey this theme. Bierce particularly uses irony and similes in order to convey the message that war does not yield glory. Instead, he employs these literary devices in order to reveal that war is…

St. Augustine, like most Christians who eventually come to the faith, persevered through a number of trails. These trials helped shape and develop his soon to be discovered faith along with his character. Similar to most Atheist, the idea of Catholicism was hard for him wrap his head around, due to them taking everything as literal as stated in the Scriptures. Fortunately, St. Augustine’s Confessions, an autobiography by St. Augustine himself, gives the readers a backstory into his coming to the…

The Journey to Saint Hood After reading the book “Confessions of Saint Augustine,” I felt comfortable being able to write my semester paper over this book. This book begins with the life of Saint Augustine. The first nine books (chapters) are mostly made up of the younger days, birth to middle aged, to around the time he converted to Catholicism. For this paper, I went back through and re-read the book to try and interrupt some of the dialogue better than I did the first time. After reading…

morals, other times by exemplary and virtuous action on her part. He ended up, of course, falling in with the Manicheans in his earlier adult life, although the seeds that his mother planted were still lying dormant. Eventually, as he meets Saint Ambrose, he sees in Ambrose’s teachings answers to the philosophical troubles that he had been having and rejects the Manichean teachings.…

In Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” a man named Peyton Farquahar finds himself on the end of a rope, waiting to be hung. Bierce provides vivid details and imagery to give a realistic view into Peyton’s world, despite it being merely the hallucination of a dying man. The story begins with a descriptive illustration of the Federation army soldiers surrounding Peyton, the river below, and the rope and post (Bierce 318). Painting these vivid surroundings, the author…

The history of St. Augustine of Hippo is often limited to his profoundly popular work, the Confessions. This is precisely why James J. O’Donnell wrote his biography on the life of Saint Augustine. The thesis of this work is to delve beyond the legend, and expounds upon the daily life and public actions of Augustine. James J. O’Donnell surely has the credentials to write on this topic, given that he based this book on the corse that he taught at Yale University, which is also the university from…

Book X marks the transition in the Confessions from autobiography to the direct analysis of philosophical and theological issues. It is also noteworthy that the length of the Books begins to increase dramatically here (Book X is more than twice the length of most of the previous Books). Although this is a sudden transition in form and content, Augustine is following an underlying structure. This structure depends mainly on his view (which is not explicitly mentioned in the work) that the story…

A few notable autobiographies existed in Europe before Rousseau published the Confessions, but his work in many ways represented an entirely new literary form. Although works such as St. Augustine’s own Confessions (a.d. 397) had previously been widely read and celebrated, religious works of that kind differed greatly from Rousseau’s own, since they sought to convey an inspirational story of religious virtuosity. By contrast, Rousseau’s Confessions sought to bare the entire life of its author…

Augustine’s Confessions demonstrates the conversion of a man from sin to piety. While Augustine credits God’s hand for his transformation, another man guides Augustine’s conversion as well. Though unknowingly, Alypius’ influence on the life of Augustine prompts him to better himself, inciting purpose in his search for truth which in turn leads to his conversion. Despite Augustine’s many claims of interactions and signals from God, Alypius’ youth and innocence, his more modest sin, and his…

Augustine’s Confessions Book III Response In Book Three of Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine recounts what he considers to be the lowest point in his life, the “climax of [his] enjoyment(CH1)”. He recalls how malicious influences continued to haunt him, and that even when he found good influences, he found something in them inexcusably dissatisfying. Augustine is now around the age of eighteen and in Carthage. He has fallen even farther down the slippery slope of lust and sinful indulgence,…