Jonathan Haidt

“I have a dream to be a ballerina, mom! I would wear a tutu everyday! I look like a princess!” “You can’t be a ballerina, Naomi. They have a long straight legs. Unfortunately, you have inherited your father’s bowlegged, and you are also pigeon-toed.” This is my first time I felt frustration, and something bad feeling toward to my mom. I was a five years old. “Why she doesn’t encourage me? Why she doesn’t want me to challenge my dream before I start the training?” Actually, I just wanted wear a…

Imagine that there is a bully in school and he picks on everyone else and starts many fights. This bully runs for class president. The bully in this situation is not qualified to run for office because he has no positive leadership qualities. When a person does not make an exceptional or humane leader then they have no right in controlling others. When a leader is controlling others and not leading them he does not deserve to be the leader either. The classmates in this school are justified…

After reading W.S. Merwin’s “Unchopping a Tree”, the most devout Christian may stop and pause before taking an axe to an intricately perfect tree, to use it as a temporary giant ornament. But far more than the once a year ritual of picking out and chopping down the perfect Christmas tree or the chopping down of trees for winter fire wood, it is the tragic deforestation for profit and the destruction of animal habitat that the author is drawing our attention to.…

Satire uses many different types of devices, like irony, humor, and exaggeration, to expose vices or follies in society. In A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, a Menippean satire format is employed by the author, to advance the bizarre idea of using infants as food to fix economical and social issues in Ireland. Some critics think that Swift’s proposal was not very satirical but rather excessive hyperbole. The article “Have You Eaten yet? The Reader In A Modest Proposal” by Robert Phiddian,…

When people gather in groups, leaders rise, taboos form, and malcontents grumble. The traditions and mores of a society become controls of the ruling class, manipulated to better serve the needs of the powerful in maintaining power. However, with the invention of the printing press and an increased literacy of the common man, information moved from the hands of the church and the noble elite to the common man. The late 17th century, ushered in the Age of Reason a period of intellectual growth,…

Somber, cheerless, regressive; typical personalities of rural Irish. In“Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics”, Nancy Scheper- Hughes, discovered a great amount of revelations. From questioning mental illness to making connections in human behavior, Scheper- Hughes’ discoveries of rural Irish were controversial to say the least. While some of her discoveries were easy to fathom, others such as the similarities in personalities were not. Due to the fact that I was raised in a diverse and…

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, is a unique piece of literature that captures absurdity through humor. Douglas Adams use of absurdity sheds a light on the broader human emotions using ridiculousness and silliness. He uses the incongruity theory of humor, when something violates our mental patterns and expectations, to mix humor and irrational events to bring laughter. While the book and the movie have many differences, they both still hold the theme of absurdity, where very few things end…

In the novel Brave New Wolrd Aldus Huxley talks about many social and political issues in his time. Alsud Huxley uses many literary elements to talk about these political and social issues and masterfully crafts them to take part in the meaning of the book as a whole.The main literary devices the author uses are satire, repetition, and imagery. The main focus of the novel Brave New World is satire to the most extreme.The entire novel, except the end, can be summed up as satire. The book begins…

As a novel based on perspectives, “Gulliver’s Travels” uses strong description of not only characters, but scenes and settings. Jonathan Swift sets forth a satirical novel that expresses the political, cultural, and idealistic climates of England during the time in which the novel takes place. By examining the descriptions provided by Swift, a clear connection to a variety of themes becomes visible throughout the novel. One of the most commonly addressed themes in “Gulliver’s Travels” is…

Tentative Interpretation of The False Gems The False Gems was written by Guy de Maupassant in 1883.“Maupassant is considered as one of the fathers of the modern short story”. ( wikipedia ) He always depicted human lives and destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms. Readers also can find some similarities in The False Gems. Writer could invisibly finish the objective and actual description and the short story only uses thousands of words and makes the plot twists…