Past

Your past always comes back to haunt you. Every human life is shaped either for the better or worse because of the past. In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, one character in particular is running from his past. By doing so, a bigger mess is made. You can run from your past, but you can't run forever. Jean Valjean spent 19 years in captivity for stealing a loaf of bread. After he is released, he has a self discovery. He decides to reinvent himself; to leave his past behind to start fresh. But it is…

remember the past are condemned to repeat it” by George Santayana. I believe that this best explains what history is and why people study because what George is saying is that if you do not know what mistakes people made before us, then you do not know what NOT to do. Therefore you are bound to make that mistake. Another reason I believe that this quote explains why we study history is that if you are going to do what the quote says, then you have to study what mistakes people did in the past in…

away these memories in a vain hope that they will not resurface. Exposing the open wounds of memory and extracting moments from the past bring with it the former pain and anguish. In the most dire cases, even the promise of death is more alluring. In William Carlos Williams’ “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime”, a despondent woman yearns to escape the clutches of her past memories. In her final confession, we learn that she wishes to succumb to her depression by “fall[ing] into those flowers and…

reality. I intend to argue in a similar vein to presentism with a few alterations that eliminate the failure of presentism in explaining things that existed in the past (REFERENCE). In essence, I will argue that, similarly to presentism, only the present exists, and it necessarily exists in the A-series, however I will also argue that the past and future exist in a mind-dependent reality where they exist in the B-series of time (REFERENCE). Firstly, I will define the key terms of my argument as…

effect of its preceded state (Litch 121). It is the past that creates the present and it is the present that determines the future. Everything is what is now because it was determined by something in the past. According to Mary Litch, “Events in the past are determined and fixed: we may regret that something happened, be angry that it happened, or prefer that it hadn’t happened, but we cannot choose that it did not happen” (Litch 122). The past is set in stone it is the future that is in…

chapter have an alternate view on the passage of time, offering different insights into the way humans interact with it. For Benjy, time is meaningless. Every moment to him feels as though it had just occurred and he cannot differentiate between the past and the present. Simply hearing the name of his sister brings him back in time and he literally relives the moment, unaware that this is only a memory. Time is in constant flux, and attempting to understand his experiences can be disorienting…

The possibilities to help others in the future and there for make a change in the future of another. That contributes making a purpose for another to discover. The reliability of incorporating the past into the present is to avoid a mistake that could affect an accomplishment or advancement that could change the future of humanity. They both play a part in making the future and present others as comfortable as possible. There is only so much each…

weight we carry and its significance we put on the past, present, and future is something that affects our mood and truly influences our lives. People move through life and get caught up in their minds while missing important things going on around them all while missing out on the joys of the world surrounding them. The short story The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, focuses on how First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross lets his daydreams of the past, present, and future impact his actions…

The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov is a play about a family of orphaned children living dissatisfied life. The play is rich in time imagery, which is used for indicating the passing of time, and to emphasize the temporality of human existence and theme of the play that sheer hope with no action cannot solve one’s disillusionment towards his situation. The time imagery is intricately weaved into the structure of the play, even though it is not liner in structure. Each act takes place during…

shifts from present to past tense halfway through the story, effectively depersonalizing the conflict between the children and allowing it to portray a larger conflict between countries. In the beginning, the author uses present tense. This part of the story is the part when it is peaceful and safe and the two children are friendly with each other. The use of present tense extends until Rami mentions how Bethlehem is the Lord’s city, which is when the author first uses past tense to describe how…