Cynic

There is hardly any contemporary literature that touched the essence of racism to its sore spot: most African American literature either accuse the world of the unfair treatment with extreme statements or exhibit their passive aggressiveness and cynical opinions to the mass majority. However, one such writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his letter to his fifteen-year-old son Samori, “Between the World and Me,” exhibits his critical analysis of this matter through recounting his personal experience with…

The Stoic philosophy, developed from the Cynics, provided a perfectly unified account of the world that combined formal logic, materialistic physics, and naturalistic ethics. Stoicism supports the idea of living in harmony with a natural world instead of one where an individual has no direct control. This is where the “Tri-Control” theory arises. There are three types of control: no control, partial control, and full control. Stoics argues that an individual must let go of the “no control”…

Humphrey Bogart played the main role of Rick. This movie was an incredible success. It combined love and sadness with the story of a cynic becoming an idealist. Warner Brothers made this movie as an attempt to aid the war effort. A later movie, Humphrey Bogart’s Sahara (1943), tells a more intimate picture of World War II though. Set in Northern Africa in 1943, Sahara features Humphrey…

I heard a woman once say that “fairytales are a reminder that our lives will get better if we just hold on to hope” (Snow). Although fairytales are believed to have been a source created to teach morals to children, as an adult I feel the consolation of a fairy-tale, I hold on to the hope instilled by the author through the characters. I indulge in the joyous and unexpected turn of a story that has a happy ending. And I dream of finding the true love that is exemplified in these so called…

maybe they’ll wipe your email memory. I hope that you know that what I was saying was mainly tongue-in-cheek. I do not really imagine anyone, let alone yourself, will write something impactful enough to change anything. Most of the time I am a cynic, like yourself, perhaps even more so than you because I often resonate with nihilism and you seem not to, and bug the shit out of people with my incessant pessimism. People tend not…

Bruce W. Longenecker’s book Lost Letters of Perfamum has been a delightful easy read. This book is both educational and easily entertaining. The book is a fictional account of letters discovered in the city of Pergamum that once belonged to Antipas, the martyr mentioned in Revelation 2:13 who died in Pergamum. These letters inspired what Longenecker produced which is to be although fictional but seems more of a narrative to the history that is going on. Longenecker’s Antipas was a Roman…

Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda gives a unique look into Canada’s rich and tumultuous past. Through three strong charters Boyden is able to tell a story that transports the reader into the colonization era in Canada. By using three different characters, we as readers are able to conceptualize the point of view of the parties involved, the Native Peoples and the French Jesuit missionaries. While some argue there are numerous historical inaccuracies, I feel they are used to the advantage of the books.…

The Global Chat History proves that when you undertake a revolutionary stance against the social norms of the things as they are, violence usually is close behind. Whether it is a sit-in at a white only lunch counter, or a protest against a corrupt government there is always something being flamed through social media. It lights up like Christmas with all the news and rumors of the latest undertaking. Albeit there was no Twitter or Facebook when the students defied the social norms and demanded…

means here being two sided. Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, who is well known for his legendary work The Prince which made him known as a disbeliever and a dishonest cynic. Nelson Mandela who was a non-white nationalist and was the first black president of South Africa, in the 1990’s he helped to end the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation and accompanied in a peaceful change to majority rule…

Which did you like better: Forster’s or Ellison’s story? Why? “Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed on him?” -Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange I start my essay by quoting Anthony Burgess. His single quote to summarizes the main plot device used in both Ellison’s as well as Forster’s stories to carry their own message across: the struggle between man and societal ‘oppressions’ – a squared framework in which everyone must conform to. Comparing both stories,…