Leo McKern

Leo Tolstoy pulls no punches when the story of The 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.…

Benjamin Franklin once said “[t]hose who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” The message Franklin was trying to convey is that liberty is a gift, and it should not be used as a bargaining chip for ones personal desires. His warning to all about the value of vital rights is not just right-wing propaganda, but rather a warning with truth behind it. Throughout history many people have given total devotion to a ruler in hopes…

Romeo and Juliet, a classic that everyone knows as a romantic movie about two teenagers in love. Everyone being everyone who hasn’t read the play. The play is quite brutal actually, with there being five deaths major deaths by the end. Romeo being responsible for Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin) and Paris (Juliet’s supposed to be husband). Romeo kills himself thinking his love is dead; who he had known, married, slept with, and ded with all in the course of a week. Juliet soon wakes up because she isn’t…

to live, and living to die is expressed throughout history in all manners of literary works. Of the endless writers whom illustrate the theme of death, four authors whom depict this leitmotif are John Keats, Rosalía de Castro, Emily Dickinson, and Leo Tolstoy. The works albeit different, transcribe the desire to accomplish their goals; to blossom, before they are faced with their mortality; to perish. This idea is both beautifully motivating to fulfill ones dreams, yet exceptionally terrifying…

Eternal Love To the Lighthouse, written by Virginia Woolf, is a novel about the effect relationships have on people’s lives. The first part of the novel The Window is about the Ramsay family and their guests’ time during a 12-hour span period at a summerhouse. All of them have the basic story of considering visiting the lighthouse the next day, but each character has a sub-plot. In the second part of the novel Time Passes, about ten years have gone by. Mrs. Ramsay has passed away, and the rest…

When Russian literature is mentioned, the two giants Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky overshadow the majority of other writers. However, it is not the case for Anton Chekhov. Chekhov emerged into the scene during the 19th century, the same time as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. As a short-stories writer and dramatist, Chekhov made a mark for himself, as he is “the only other one to make much of an impression abroad.” (Brians) Chekhov wrote during the early 1900s, when Russia saw “the rise of the…

Power is not evil, it is the user that makes it evil. Machiavelli, a controversial figure in political history left a legacy of brutal reality which disturbed many people. Niccolo Machiavelli’s, The Prince explores the groundbreaking ideas for a prince to secure the leading position in government and retain his power and leadership. Human nature combined with power has the possibility of becoming tragically destructive. However, that wreckage stems from the environment, and the actions…

When historians look back to the twentieth century, they seldom speak of peace. Instead, they divert their attention to the hostility of this period with regard to impactful events such as countless wars and the rise and fall of political leaders, revolutionaries, and activists. Among the activists of the time, three of the most prominent were Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. Today, these men are revered not solely based on their ability to successfully lead their…

On November 18, 1978, in what became known as the “Jonestown Massacre,” more than 900 members of Peoples Temple Church died in a mass suicide-murder under the direction of their leader Jim Jones.Jim Jones used blind faith, promise of reward, and violence to shape the identities of his followers. His followers were following by blind faith and used that to get followers.He let any race be apart of the church. Let any race in his Peoples Temple Church and that brought more people in.Did great…

According to oxforddictionaries.com nonviolence is defined as the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change. In both the film Selma and Book One and Two of March, nonviolence became an important tactic that was used during the Civil Rights Movement. It was applied to hopefully eradicate the evil that the African Americans faced: the evil of racism. In Panel Three on page 101 of March: Book One, John Lewis describes in a textbox how the protestors who went to…