Five

Dictionary.com defines dark humor as “a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.” In Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, this concept of dark humor is used throughout to convey the actuality of war. By examining all aspects of war, Vonnegut approaches the cruelty of war from a variety of different perspectives in order to craft one, unified thesis about the meaning of war. Kurt…

The Source Behind Martin Luther’s 95 Theses Early in 16th century Europe all writings were becoming more widely available due to the invention of the printing press, including the Bible and the writings of early church philosopher Augustine. Martin Luther, a monk and a theology professor at Wittenberg University, shared Augustine’s two central beliefs that the Bible has ultimate religious authority and that humans cannot reach salvation by their own acts. These beliefs would later become the…

On April 15, 2005, Richard Louv published his book Lost Child in the Woods, a book about the relationship between people and nature. Louv was born in 1945 and dedicated his life to journalism and writing books connecting nature and the community, Lost Child in the Woods being the most well-known and impactful on society. Louv coincidentally was born in 1945, the year when 51 countries were attacking each other (again) in what is commonly known as World War II. Post-war, America had a peace…

Characterization has been the cornerstone of literature for centuries. Character presentation can attain any framework or shame. In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer uses thoughts and actions, to characterization of the Friar and the Monk to emphasize corruption in the Catholic Church. The monk is a religious character who is corrupt. Instead of reading on his cell, he prefers to go hunting. He also decides to wear decorative clothes instead of dressing in simple clothes. The Friar is…

Both the authors, William Golding and William Shakespeare highlight severe human weakness in the novel Lord of the Flies and the play Macbeth respectively. This was deliberately done in response to their profound yet interesting lives that they had experienced as a human. This is evident as; Lord of the Flies was portrayed as an allegorical microcosm of the world Golding was involved in, which included real-life violence and brutality of the World War II. Perhaps, it was intended by the author…

Loyalty is not a word, it is a lifestyle. This is shown time and again by the characters in The Godfather by Mario Puzo. The Godfather is a crime novel written by Mario Puzo and was first published in 1969 and later inspired a film of the same name in 1972, sequels to which were made in 1974 and 1990. The story of The Godfather follows a mafia family in New York over the span of a decade. The family in the novel…

“No. My dad leaves bruises on the inside”(pg 70). In Ironman, Chris Crutcher, the author, shows physical and mental abuse through the main characters in this story. They have been abused internally or externally by either a parent or a close family member. The main characters, Bo and Shelly are affected by the continual bullying from the ones that are expected to protect them. Unfortunately, there’s a handful of children who experience this type of hardship throughout their lifetime. 5 Bo…

Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle is a satirizing of the Cold War and the possible catastrophic apocalypse brought on by moral ambiguous scientific innovations. One of Bokonon’s sayings explains why Vonnegut favors satire: “Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything” (Vonnegut. 1963, p. 198). World War II brought rapid scientific advances and a state of political tension between the Soviet Union and the United…

Is the church really what it seems to be?Martin Luther was a theologian born in 1483 in Germany who changed the history of church forever. He became one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity. Martin Luther was against some of the most basic tenets of Catolicism. Martin Luther thought that the church has been corrupted, and that it had become more like a business. In 1517 Martin Luther published the 95 theses which were basically an attack on the bad things the church had…

The Council of Trent finally began, in the northern Italian city of Trent. The Council held a number of meetings, with the three main sessions occurring in 1545–7, 1551–2, and 1562–3 by Pope Paul III. It was the most important movement of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s first significant reply to the growing Protestant Reformation. The primary purpose of the Council was to condemn and refute the beliefs of the Protestants, such as Martin Luther, and also to make the set…