Catch 22 paper

The novel that I chose to read for my final paper is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. At this point I have finished the novel and started writing my paper. I have decided to talk about the power of an overwhelming bureaucracy and how bureaucracy uses Catch-22 to its own gains without care for the common citizen. I will be also relating this theme in some small way to the book 1984, because I believe that the central messages of the books are similar.

Since I must write this essay...

Michael Drayton explores the many intricacies of love and the many complications of a relationship in his poem “Since there’s no help”. This sonnet is different from most love poems, however, because it deals with the end of a relationship and the dwindling and death of love rather than the happier or more positive side of love. The poem is about the end of the relationship between the speaker and his ex-lover, and all of the complicated emotions and feelings that the speaker possesses because of this termination of their relationship. The poem features a very clear and distinct division between the first eight lines and the final six lines, with the speaker’s tone being very different in each section as well as the content of the first octave and the final sestet differing. The contrasting sections effectively contribute to the overall message of the poem about love and its ability to survive and recover from any damages.

The first octave is a journey through the end of the speaker’s relationship and the conflicting emotions present throughout this journey. The first octave is divided into two quatrains, each revealing key information about the speaker and his relationship. The first line of the poem, “since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part,” quickly introduces the subject of the sonnet to the reader and allows the reader to quickly judge both the speaker and his relationship. The first four words of the poem indicate the sense of helplessness that the speaker feels and the inevitability of his relationship’s end. He seems sad of his relationship’s end, and sorrowfully accepts his fate with a kiss and the parting of him and his lover. In the next three lines, however, we see the speaker’s tone change to a harsher one with some vitriol against his ex-lover. In the second line, the speaker proclaims that his lover shall have no more of him; this claim is probably more for his own sake than for his ex-lover’s sake. It is noticeable that the speaker is not entirely comfortable or happy with the end of this relationship, and he is attempting to convince himself that this is good for him and will end up being a positive in his life. The content of the third and fourth lines again show the speaker’s self justification of this decision, as he boldly states that he is glad that he is freeing himself of the relationship “cleanly,” which I interpret to mean completely ending the relationship.

The next quatrain continues this discussion of the relationship and its future, or rather more precisely its possible lack of a future. The fifth line “shake hands for ever” highlights the strength of the decision and the mutual agreement, with both partners shaking hands on the matter of their failed relationship. The other part of that line, “cancel all our vows,” reveals information as to how strong and serious the relationship once was and provides a comparison for the current state of their relationship. The next three lines, six through eight, provide more information about the agreement. In these lines the speaker says how neither he nor his ex-lover will display any signs or traces of their former love, not only to the rest of the world but also between each other they cannot show any memories of love. One phrase that I found most interesting was “when we meet again,” stating that not only is it a possibility that the speaker and his lover might meet again but instead it is definite that they will meet again.

The final six lines of this poem show a complete shift from the ending of the speaker’s relationship to the metaphorical death of love. The philosophical and romantic tone of the speaker in the sestet is a stark contrast to the bitter tone of the first octave. In these final six lines, we see our speaker compare the death of love to the death of an old man. The speaker highlights three key aspects of love—passion, faith, and innocents—and shows how each aspect is affected by the death of love. Obviously, this personification of the death of love is meant to represent the death of the speaker’s love. However, the final two lines add a twist to the death of love, implying that there may still be hope yet. Through all of the turmoil that love had to endure, and although it had almost all the life drained from it, love can still recover, but only if you put serious effort into it and through sheer willpower bring it back to life. Finally, this last revelation shows that the speaker’s relationship still has a chance to be salvaged and mended, because of the power and persistence of love (794).

Success in Death of a Salesman

For my blog this week, I wanted to further elaborate on the idea of success as it relates to Willy and Biff, and also to add how the idea and goal of achieving the American Dream relates to these two characters. In my opinion, neither Biff nor Willy is successful in their lives. While Biff is still relatively young and has time to maybe to something notable with the rest of his life, so far he has achieved almost no success. He had the potential to go to college on a football scholarship and start on the path to success, but he failed at this due to his inability to pass summer math course and instead started on a path that led him to an unsuccessful career without true happiness. Biff, in his job as a farmer, makes little money, isn’t truly happy because he is disappointing himself and his father, and has a job that is not going to take him far in life. Ultimately, Biff is not very successful in his life, and was not able to achieve the dream of going on a football scholarship or being an important successful person.

Willy also does not achieve much success in his life. His entire career as a salesman is stained by loneliness and insecurity of himself, which leads him to constantly desire anything to make him seem important and to have self-worth. His affair with The Woman is a perfect example of his loneliness and his craving to be appreciated by someone. All of these things total up to Willy not being very happy in his life. Even for people who argue that happiness is the only true measure of success, this mindset supports the idea that Willy is not successful because he is not happy. If one looks at success in a broader and more general view, Willy is not highly successful in this way either. He lives a life where he makes a decent wage doing a job we have much evidence he is at best mediocre at, he raises two sons who grow up to not achieve to much and have average lives, and he doesn’t achieve fame or recognition from many people. While Willy cannot be considered a failure, all of these factors do not add up to a great degree of success. Willy does not really achieve the American Dream like he wanted to, because of his modest life and his children’s modest lives. Perhaps the most important measure of Willy’s success is his funeral, where not many people show up. Willy’s dream was to be like Dave Singleton, a salesman who worked until he died and had a large widely-attended funeral. This did not happen for Willy, and he did not achieve the success of his idol.

So, in conclusion, it is hard to make a case for either Willy or Biff as a successful person (484).

The character of Nora

In Henrik Iben’s play “A Doll’s House,” the character of Nora and the conflict surrounding her are integral to the entire play. The question that I have chosen to answer deals with Nora, and asks in what ways she is both at fault and also a victim in the story. Her actions which prompted this question were her forgery of her father’s signature to take out a loan from the shady Krogstad in order to finance a trip to Italy and her subsequent lying about the source of the money to her husband Torvald. The story then unfolds and, in my opinion, Nora appears as both a victim throughout the story and someone who is at fault and justly faces consequences for her actions.

In the story, there are a few reasons that Nora is at fault for her actions and can be blamed for the problems that arise from her actions. The most basic reason is that she performed an illegal action. Women did not have the same power and privileges in the time of the play as they do today, and the only way that Nora would be able to take out a loan would be for a man to do it. Therefore, she illegally forges her father’s signature and receives the loan to finance the trip to Italy to improve the health of her husband Torvald. Another reason that she can take fault for is her lying to her husband about the money. Nora tries very hard throughout the story to maintain this lie to her husband. And finally, Nora is to blame for her situation because of her choice to make a deal with a suspicious man like Krogstad. The blackmail that he uses against Nora is not unexpected, and Nora deserves to deal with it because of her choice to associate herself with him.

While there are reasons that Nora is at fault, an argument can definitely be made for her as a victim in the story. One major argument is she was ultimately trying to do the right thing for her husband and also not damage his pride. Her forgery of the signature to take out the loan was for the benefit and the health of husband, who she obviously cares about enough to do such an act. Her cover up of the loan by lying and working extra jobs to secretly pay it back was again for her husband, because she did not want his pride to be damaged knowing he needed a woman to bail him out and finance a trip for his health. In these views Nora can be seen as a victim of the story because she was only trying to help.

Overall, Nora is an interesting character in the story, and is deep enough to be looked at from multiple perspectives. (472)

How Hamlet is and isn't Star Wars

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and George Lucas’s Star Wars movies seem at first glance to be completely different and unrelated. Take a closer look at each of the two stories, however, and you will notice many similarities, most notably in the driving action of each story. For my blog, I will be comparing the roles of the ghost/spirit in each story, as well as comparing how each story executes the basic plot of avenging a father’s death.

A ghost ends up serving as a vital part of the story in both Hamlet and Star Wars. In Hamlet, this ghost is the spirit of Hamlet’s recently murdered father, the King of Denmark. Hamlet encounters his father’s ghost early in the story, who reveals to him that the new king Claudius, his brother, was the one who murdered him. The ghost then provides the driving action for the story, instructing Hamlet to avenge his death and murder Claudius. So, in the story of Hamlet, the ghost is obviously a very important character whose role is to provide the action for the story. In Star Wars, the ghost of that story serves a different purpose and acts as a mentor and a guide for the protagonist, Luke. In Episode IV: A New Hope, Obi Wan Kenobi is physically killed by Darth Vader, but only after uttering the words, “If you strike me down now I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” And indeed, Obi Wan becomes a ghost and a guiding spirit for young Luke Skywalker, helping him stay calm in tense situations and providing useful advice.

The main similarity between the two stories is the overarching theme of avenging a father’s death. In Star Wars, Luke starts his journey by wanting to help defeat the Galactic Empire in any facet he can, but ultimately he finds that his goal ends up being to kill Darth Vader, the man who he believes killed his father. This is almost exactly the same as Hamlet, where Hamlet’s ultimate goal is to kill Claudius, again the man who killed his father. In the case of Hamlet, Claudius did very clearly kill Hamlet’s father, thus making him prone to some sort of revenge by the son. In Star Wars, Darth Vader didn’t technically kill Luke’s father Anakin, because Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader as he famously puts it (“Luke, I am your father”), but Darth Vader did in fact kill Anakin. In a scene from Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Obi Wan effectively explains to Luke that his “father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed.” So, Darth Vader murdered the good and light side of Anakin Skywalker, just like how Claudius murdered his brother, Hamlet’s father. Both stories also end with the same type of ending, as the evil Claudius and Darth Vader both die. However, the essential difference is redemption; when Vader saves Luke from the Emporer, he regains his humanity and everything that was once good about him, thus properly avenging Anakin Skywalker. In Hamlet, however, everyone ends up dying, such as Polonius, Ophelia, the Queen, Laertes, and Claudius and Hamlet, thus not properly redeeming the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

Now, there are of course numerous differences between Star Wars and Hamlet, and I’ll just name a few of them quickly: Star Wars does not take place in Denmark, there are no lightsabers or Ewoks in Hamlet, Star Wars has Jabba the Hutt, Hamlet is fiction, and a few others. But ultimately I found some of the parallels that could be drawn between the two stories very interesting. (620)

Tragedy in Antigone

Sophocles’ play Antigone is most certainly a tragedy, similar to other Greek tragedies such as Oedipus by the same author. What makes this tragedy different, in my opinion, is the fact that there are two potential tragic figures in this play: Antigone, the play’s namesake, and Creon, the king of Thebes who is arguably the most important character of the play. Antigone is the tragic story of a woman whose desire to do what she feels is right and proper at any cost ultimately causes the loss of her life; it is also the story of the tragic downfall of a king whose strict adherence to law in an attempt to maintain order in his kingdom cause his entire world around him to crumble to pieces.

First, we will take a closer look at the character of Antigone and her tragic story. Right from the very beginning of the story it is obvious that Antigone is a very strong-willed woman who stands for what is just and right. After the injustice of Creon’s decree forbidding burial of her deceased brother Polynices because he was a “traitor,” Antigone is determined to give her brother the proper respect that he deserves in death. She decides to deliberately disobey the law and bury her brother anyways; in this action she not only commits the crime which physically leads to her death but also reveals her tragic flaw. This flaw is her failure to play it safe and recklessly commit a crime which she has a high chance of being caught for. Her reasoning of this stems from her belief that she is above the law and that she obeys the law of God and justice; this reveals a failure to understand her place in society as a female citizen who is not obligated to receive any special treatment.

Creon can be viewed as a tragic figure also, but his reasons and his flaws are much different than those of Antigone. Creon, as the new ruler of Thebes, attempts to lay down strict, specific rules and orders to keep his kingdom in line. His decree forbidding the burial of Polynices, and his faithful enforcement of this rule cause problems for him that ultimately lead to his downfall. In this one singular act, created with good intentions to protect the masses and maintain order, started him on his downward spiral. One of his significant flaws is revealed in this process, and that is his adherence to law despite its negative consequences. Creon thinks that he absolutely has to follow through with his punishment, as shown in his dialogue with Haimon and Antigone, and this is why he loses everything. Another flaw is his hubris, as shown in his conversation with the prophet Teresias and failure to listen to the advice is Teresias, and, in effect, the Gods. Creon is essentially a good person with good intentions, but his flaws cost him his son, his wife, and effectively his entire life.

So, I will leave it to you to decide who is the more important character in the story and who is the true tragic figure. (520)

Death is a lonely thing

In his introduction to “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Ronald Blythe discusses the “sheer desolating aloneness of dying,” and in this story this aloneness is glaringly obvious and a prominent aspect of the story. Throughout his painful course of death, Ivan receives very little support for his illness and mostly has to deal with his sadness and realization of death in solitude. Even his own wife, Praskovya, wishes he were dead so she would not have to deal with him anymore, but only has reservations about these thoughts when she realizes that she would no longer enjoy his salary if he was dead (because dead people don’t get paid money).

The true aloneness of Ivan’s death is apparent right from the start in the story’s first chapter. All of Ivan’s acquaintances, including to some degree his best friend Peter Ivanovich, are more interested in the financial and professional consequences of Ivan’s death rather than concern and thought for the deceased. Ivan’s wife Praskovya is concerned about receiving her government pension for her husband’s death and how to get as much money as she can while showing little respect or care about her late husband. Many of Ivan’s professional acquaintances are thinking about the implications of his death with regard to his position as a judge, while also feeling glad that they are alive while Ivan is dead. These post-mortem actions of Ivan’s “friends” reveal the lack of loyalty of his friends and how they, in effect, abandoned him after he died, making the loneliness of his death that much more pronounced. Even Peter betrays him, thinking about making his card game on-time and wanting to speed through the funeral processions so he can play his cards. This selfish act by Peter helps highlight the aloneness that Ivan had to suffer through in his death.

One specific event in his life that is very representative of the desolating aloneness that Ivan feels is the night of playing bridge with his friends late in chapter four. As Ivan is trying to enjoy the game and find some pleasure in his life, the pain in his side and the bad taste in his mouth begin to dominate him and Ivan ends up ruining a great hand that he had. His partner, rather than feeling sympathy towards Ivan’s condition, responds with anger and distress at Ivan’s failure. This leads Ivan down a road of depressing thoughts, as he thinks about how no one cares about him and Ivan is just poisoning other people’s lives. Ivan feels incredibly alone at this point in time, not believing there to be anyone who understands or even pities him.

Overall, the unfortunate journey to death for Ivan Ilyich is plagued with sorrow, sadness, and aloneness (457).