Ivan Della Mea

Throughout the course of Cultural Perspectives, many texts and authors who have contributed to the Great Conversation have been discussed. Ultimately, each author is attempting to find his or her summum bonum or “highest good.” Although each author has a different definition of summum bonum, the majority agrees on the method required to attain the highest good: balance. Whether that balance be implicitly or explicitly accredited for the summum bonum differs for each author. Lao Tzu’s thoughts…

is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!”(page 50, lines 319-321), Hamlet’s amazement with man coincides perfectly with Pico della Mirandola’s, and other Humanist thinkers, ideal that man is an equal to God. Man is no longer considered the scum of the Earth, man is now praised and compared to angels and gods. Hamlet is not the only play in which Shakespeare reflects upon…

as symbols in their stories to represent the characters and their feelings. In The Death of Ivan and Ilyich, one of the symbols Tolstoy uses is the black sack. This sack was a long narrow sack that was never ending and the character in the story, Ivan, experiences going through this black sack twice. The first time he experiences going through this sack was right after he was given a medicine, opium. Ivan falls into the black sack and keeps falling but doesn’t know what is at the bottom of the…

afraid of that sack, yet wanted to fall through” (99). The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy, is the story of a man who cares for nothing but worldly achievements and self-seeking happiness. Completely engrossed in his career, Ivan gives no thought to his spiritual life, and, as a result, the idea of death never crosses his mind—until death knocks on his door. When death stares Ivan in the face and laughs at his helplessness , Ivan can do nothing but pity himself, seeing no escape from the…

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ivan could be considered as one who takes things for granted especially life. Ivan is known for his working and quest to get higher on the social hierarchy because that is the most important thing to Ivan. He was caught in being the best, that he forgot how to live life respectively. Ivan also went into marriage with his wife without truly loving her. Therefore at the end of the day Ivan realizes that he had spent his entire life doing everything wrong and because…

Death of Ivan Ilyich begins. The revelation that Ivan Ilyich has died was met with dismay and shock for all of the wrong reasons. Colleagues and “friends” became concerned for his death not because of the loss of his life, but for the inconveniences and changes it would cause for them. The lack of sincerity surrounding Ivan became very clear in the opening scenes of the story, and we quickly start to realize that Ivan lived a “false” life. Instead of living his own life sincerely, Ivan was more…

fatality not only through Ivan, but also his collaborators, exposing the certainty that death can come upon anyone at any moment in time. His alleged “friends” are not so much distraught concerning his death, yet pleased it wasn’t them. Even felt a restrained paroxysm of apprehension for having to attribute time from their daily lives for obligatory sympathetic gestures to his widow. “Each one thought or felt, “Well he’s dead but I’m alive!” But the more intimate of Ivan Ilyich’s acquaintance’s,…

Dilip Chitre creates a stark impression of the isolation of old age in his poem ‘Father Returning Home’ by showing his fathers’ estrangement from society and his own family. Chitre conveys this isolation by using literary devices such as similes and repetition, and addressing themes such as modernity vs tradition. The poem begins when a father is waiting outside for a train which will take him home. We know this as it says ‘My father travels on the late evening train’. Already by labelling the…

The Life and Times of Ivan Pavlov Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born on September 14th, 1849 in Ryazan Russia to Petr Pavlov, a priest, and Varvara Pavlov, a priest’s daughter (Windholz, 1997). Ivan was the eldest son of Petr and Varvara’s eleven children, which instilled a strong sense of responsibility and drive in Ivan very early on guiding him for the rest of his life (Schultz & Schultz, 2012). Even with his strong work ethic and drive, Ivan was unable to attend formal schooling until he was…

The shared characteristic of strength led to a bit of struggle during the battles in Ivan IV Vasilyevich and Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin’s lives. Ivan’s strength was gradually built and also was natural because of his rough childhood, “He survived growing up in an environment of brutality.. both parents of his died when he was young. His father, Basil III died when Ivan was just 3. His uncle Yuri challenged Ivan’s rights to the throne which got him arrested and starved in the dungeon. His…