Vanity

Vanitas - About the Art of Painting, Levin Rodriquez, incorporates symbolism to represent the allegoric themes of inevitability of death, the futility of pleasures and transience of life. This photograph appears to be a Vanitas (from the Latin “vanity”). The main symbols that are used in a Vanitas artwork are usually, skulls to represent the inevitability of death; knowing that we cannot run and hide from it, the futility of earthly pleasures; whether using wealth or knowledge or arts to…

still here,” (Ecclesiastes 4:2) seems very strange and not what Yahweh would of wanted. It seems though that if you read the book very closely there seems to be a message of hopefulness. When it says “vanity of vanities,” (Ecclesiastes 1:2 and 12:8) is a clue to the author’s confidence. The word “vanity” appears in the book of Ecclesiastes more than any other book in the Old Testament. Hope is something that is thrown out a lot in Ecclesiastes. Although it does not clearly state the message of…

Vanity is the root of all evil. To what extent is this true of American Psycho and Dorian Gray? Compare and contrast how the protagonist are presented in both novels. Both Bret Easton Ellis and Oscar Wilde use protagonists Patrick Bateman and Dorian Gray to explore whether an excessive amount of love towards one's self can lead to an inevitable decline in mental stability. Gray and Bateman, although from different eras, are presented as men who have been placed above others in society because of…

never truly count themselves fortunate because their fortune has merely been brought on my chance and can be taken away at any moment. I think that Solon’s poetry and his character in Herodotus’ both convey the same message; mortals giving into their vanities and never being satisfied with what they have are bound to be punished by the gods or have their fortunes taken away from them in their conquest for more. In addition, Solon’s character plays a useful role because he is not trying to appeal…

piece of writing and giving it to Vanity Fair? Oh, right, how silly of me. Her writing basically talked about it, her fight for online harassment. Well, did she talk about it? Barely. She mentions the heated issue she had with Hillary Clinton and the attack on feminism and politics, but gave no solid answer to fight against online bullying. Well, I did the due diligence of researching and found that her ways of combat against cyber bullying is… an emoji app (Vanity Fair). And yes, the article on…

is flawed and the perfect princesses people think they know are no different. The short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” and common fairy tales represent the theme of loss of innocence through the characters’ lust, defiance, and vanity. One way loss of innocence is portrayed amid fairy tales and Oates’s short story is through lust. Clearly, Connie has desires to be with men. Even when Arnold Friend,…

They were men who were here before us. We must build again.” A once glorious city with an intricate society and civilization thriving with life. Now stands abandoned and mysterious. This city ended in ruins, due to selfishness, disobedience, and vanity. The empire of contributed to significant historical and moral lessons for society. To begin with, the city of Babylon was and is one of the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamia, which now in modern day is Iraq. When King Hammurabi ruled…

In "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel lets her pride control her actions. This story tells about a woman who is invited to a large party but has nothing to wear, and when she loses a borrowed necklace her life is changed forever. Initially in the exposition, Madame Loisel states how she believes she was born for every luxury and this belief is a factor in her later decisions. For example, when Madame Loisel is invited to the party with her husband she shows her pride when she…

transgress his myopia. Mirroring the Greek traditions of architecture and tragedy, Hardy impassively elevates the catastrophic accident to an cosmic ‘intelligent design’ - an orchestrated ‘convergence of the twain.’ Hardy presents this tragedy of human “vanity” through a detached, almost reportorial tone, developed from an omniscient point of view. Particularly, he uses sophisticated diction and wordplay as to elevate this event from any accident to a cleanly executed arrangement. Moreover, he…

stemming from his vanity, made him feel the desire to not be controlled, not even by God himself. Pride then lead him to round up an army of “lesser” angels and wage a war against God, eventually casting him and his followers out of heaven. This same pride also kept Lucifer from seeking forgiveness even though it was readily available to him. Similarly, Eve pride gets her and Adam cast out of the Garden of Eden. Much like Lucifer, her first prideful transgression stemmed from her vanity.…