In the book The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, the author himself is the protagonist of his own poem where he travels inside hell with a companion named Virgil. Dante travels downwards the center where he passes “circles” that represents the different type of floors with different sins. As they go downward, the sins become worse for each circle until they reach where Satan is located where everything is frozen and surrounded by ice, unlike the imagery of hell in the bible where everything is…
Ever since I started understanding philosophical ideas, one of the most feared things for me was karma. When people follow their bliss, they forget that the sins they commit in order to attain their bliss will follow perpetually. Dante Alighieri’s Inferno is a prime example of karma which conveys to the audience what to avoid when “following one’s bliss,” an idea of Joseph Campbell. Campbell believes that myths “won’t tell you what makes you happy, but it will tell you what happens when you…
As one of the most insightful philosophers and psychologists of our time, William James’ influential theory of primary and secondary memory in 1890 kick-started the long standing dispute between theories of unitary and separate memory stores. Advocates of multi-store models focus heavily on distinctions between long term memory (LTM) and short term memory (STM), such as differences in their capacity of storage and duration of which information can be withheld within each store. Other theorists…
they are greedy with these worldly desires to please them self and find false joy. The husband is also very lazy or sloth, so the writer is going to add laziness to the list as the seventh. Wrath, lust, pride, envy, gluttony, greed, and sloth; the seven deadly sins. The second sign of this hidden motif of religion is, what I call the conversion factor. The Husband sits on the floor with Roger, closes his eyes and begins to see. This may seem confusing, but most religions have a faith or some…
with Aristotle’s and Lao Tzu’s. Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, lust, and love seem to be completely unrelated and opposites; however, Dante argues that all seven of them are related and stem from love; however, some lack love, while others exceed love as previously discussed. Dante’s true summum bonum, love, is found when all seven of the deadly sins are…
Bryan Burrough was previously a writer for the Wall Street Journal, and won three John Handcock Awards in financial journalism. As an author he wrote six bestselling books before The Big Rich, including Days of Rage and Public Enemies. Burroughs grew up around the families of the Big Rich and was amazed by them. He wrote The Big Rich in response to the lack of knowledge about the families who were once considered Texas nobility. The book focuses around the lives the Big Rich, Roy Cullen, Sid…
According to the Roman Catholic doctrine, purgatory is a place or a state of mental anguish and suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins and so they undergo purification before going to heaven. These souls are waiting as they experience judgement if they can immediately enter the state of heaven or if they are to be destined for hell. Purgatory has been thought of as a physical location by others but some popes believe the opposite. In Greek mythology, Euripides’…
Demons; Wretched beasts from the pits of Hell ordered to serve Satan. We all have demons residing inside us and they can be awakened at any moment either through traumatic events or by the demon in the bottle, alcohol. Throughout his life, poet Edgar Allan Poe struggled with alcoholism and this is apparent throughout his short stories and poem. Most noteably his short story, The Black Cat, where the narrators actions are influenced by the demon in the bottle or perhaps influenced by the animal…
Everyone has a side they don’t like anyone else to see, a side that’s not very likeable by others, so it’s hidden. “Young Goodman Brown”, shows that everyone has the potential for evil within. “Young Goodman Brown” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story that uses ambiguous symbolism and provocative imagery to reveal the dark side all people have within. Young Goodman Brown, never thought for a second that anyone he knew had an evil, or dark side. He always thought of his wife as a…
Even though The Canterbury Tales is considered one of the most important works of literature it is incomplete, out of the 120 stories that were supposed to be written only twenty-four of them were ever published. The author, Geoffrey Chaucer, wrote The Canterbury tales taking place in April of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The story is set around the time of the pilgrimage to see the saint st. Thomas a Becket, a variety of people agreed to travel together and to make the trip less boring…