Paradoxes

Having lived in totalitarian societies such as Spain and Russia, George Orwell was able to experience the abominable lengths that the governments around him were willing to go to secure and extend their mass amounts of power. He showcases and explores the major flaws of a totalitarian government through his writing, making it clear to the reader that it is not his government of choice. In an essay by John Rodden, I learned a lot about Orwell’s life and how he came to be a writer. Born in India…

The iconic novel, The Things They Carried is perceived as a war book, but truth of the matter is that it’s more than that. The Things They Carried is about burdens we carry as part of life. It blends truth and fiction to tell you about the Vietnam War. This book besides the fact that it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist has been banned across the country. One of reasons for banning the book The Things They Carried was the graphic description of the war. That same reason is also why readers enjoy…

The vilification of government spending during this Cold War leaves us with a legacy of one of the great paradoxes of economic theory: politicians who directly expose prudent fiscal discipline as primary tenant of their platform, do not approach military spending with same analysis. The Bush administration was the most recent culprit of this fallacy: “Mr. Bush…

about the disguised charms of the world through the lens of cynicism. A quick glance at this poem is enough for readers to notice the author’s unique structural choice, and combined with a distinctive poetic pattern, alongside the use of contrasting paradoxes, Ferlinghetti’s The World is a Beautiful Place demonstrates his ironic, sarcastic and stylistic approach, as well as his use of symbolism and figurative language, and deals with the inherent coexistence of the good and the bad, of light and…

that his audience consisted of upper class Victorians. Throughout the play, Oscar Wilde articulately trivializes particular values which are supposed to be important in Victorian society, such as marriage and aristocracy, through the use of witty paradoxes and epigrams. Wilde's intentions were to make society think more profoundly and to make them more cognizant of serious matters in life, which should be treated with sincerity and the trivial things with seriousness. Therefore, Oscar Wilde's…

Love is considered one of the greatest paradoxes in Christian life. Is it for good or for ill we offer our hearts to one another? As C.S. Lewis notes in The Four Loves, Saint John teaches that “God is love,” thus to love is to experience a more intimate relationship with God. However, passion left unchecked festers like a sore. “We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us,…

protagonists have a religious epiphany while in a possible dream state. The stories finish with phantasmal epiphanies where the authors refuse a conclusion. Flaubert and Hawthorne play with ambiguity allowing the readers and their protagonists to question paradoxes of faith together. An epiphany is commonly known as a sudden realization. However, according to Matthew 2:112, an…

Since the mid-term, there have been a number of stories that deal with the issue of race. One story that really dealt with the issue of race was Kindred by Octavia Butler. In Kindred, Dana Franklin is transported back in time whenever her ancestor, Rufus Weylin, is in danger, and when Dana goes to Rufus’s time, she realizes that she is going to a time where African American people are still slaves. Every time Dana goes to help Rufus, she is treated even worse than the last time she had gone…

Hugh Seton-Watson divides nations into two categorized on the basis of their formation process; old continuous and new nations, which he believes is more relevant distinction than historical and unhistorical typologies. The old continuous nations, France and Britain for instance, are those which developed national identity or national consciousness before the formulation of the doctrine of nationalism. They date back to the 1600s before the French Revolution. The old nations emerged through…

born, and his grandson could not either. This means that the time machine could not have been built,which means that the grandson could not have gone back in time to kill his grandfather. This is a paradox that no one has been able to solve. These paradoxes bring up many questions. Einstein made some other important scientific accomplishments. His work is part of the reason why we have cosmology and what it is. Another big thing scientists are able to do now is predict black holes with…