The Duality of Human Nature Socrates, an ancient Greek philosopher, left us a very important heritage giving knowledge and understanding of the ancient Greek way of thinking that can be applied to modern world. One of the most memorable words of wisdom, "Bad men live that they may eat and dr...

Aristotle There has been a great debate over the highest human good and whether happiness is the highest good. Philosophers have said that the highest good is happiness. Others have said that it is piety. Aristotle insists that all human beings desire to be happy and the highest good is ha...

Gregor's Struggle In his short story, The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka shows a man's struggle to find the meaning of life. This story starts out with Gregor, the main character, awaking from unsettling dreams to find himself changed into a monstrous vermin. Because of this transformation...

Philosophy and The Good Life What is the good life? A contemporary American may state that it is to have all ones material needs satisfied. But is material wealth the only path to happiness? Can a rich man who focuses solely on the goal of accumulating wealth find peace within? Certain...

"Human desire to survive and the value of human lives." The book Ship fever by Andrea Barrett explores the development of science at an age when the society was on the entrance of progress. The little value placed on human life due to the diseases and wars that destroyed society held claim to the so...

During the decade that Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, took place, a vicious spiral of degeneration led people to turn on their own brethren, resort to violence, and blah blah blah. Pshaw! I would have loved to have lived during the 1930's simply because benevolence never went unno...

Shakespeare is one of the eighteenth centuries best-known literature writers. In his famous play "Hamlet" he has shown the power and determination of a man in love Shakespeare's Hamlet is dominated by the complex, absorbing character of its primary figure, that being ...

One of the central concerns in Byron's Manfred is the Romantic ideal of independence and the defiance of authority. It is important to understand this as an essential aspect of Manfred and also from the perspective of the Romantic imagination and ethos as a whole. The Romantics and Byron in par...

Aristotle Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher and a very educated man. He was a pupil of Plato's and was the founder of the Lyceum. His view on all subjects was teleological. He recognized purposes apart from and greater then the will of the individual human being. He gained much of his w...

Search for Life Meaning "Baraka" is an ancient Sufi word meaning a blessing or the breath/essence of life. Through a series of stunning images, the film explores the theme of the essential unity of the cosmos and humankind's search for meaning within it. Throughout the film, one is awar...

Old Man of the Sea Old Man and the Sea was written by Ernest Hemingway in 1951. This book is considered the best or one of the best novels in Hemingway's life. It was specifically cited when the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to him in 1954. The story is of a Cuban...

Victor E. Frankl is known both as an internationally famous psychiatrist, and as the author of Man's Search for Meaning, noted as one of the top 10 influential books in America by a Library of Congress survey. Frankl's work has been widely read, and 151 books have been published about Fra...

In general, living organic beings will always have a material dependence. Human beings may have a dominant form, but because they are "higher" in the scale of things, there is an even greater dependence upon a "material element". Take money for example. What other creature roams...

In the short story, "A Clean Well Lighted Place", Hemingway explores his existential beliefs concerning the reasons for human existence. He sets the story during the Spanish civil war and employs three characters to communicate his views. In the story Hemingway espouses his belief that hum...

The tone of a "Mountain Graveyard" and the diction of Robert Morgan An almost barren area left contained within a palace of ever-growing, watchful giants. Lying alone visited seldom, becoming a mystery, a cell, or even a shrine to those who know of its existence. Feelings abound hidd...

I chose the topic why people take drugs because I find drug use a most serious problem of our society nowadays. The reasons are the key to it. Behind all our actions are some reasons and I will try to describe and divide those most serious which make people take drugs. There are many books on the dr...

Herman Melville examines the complexities of human character in his short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener." By using strong metaphors, Melville illustrates the difficulties we encounter when we attempt to communicate with someone. Additionally, Melville demonstrates how human beings can affe...

There is no place on earth that is entirely without flaw. In the poem, The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, the author examines the possibility of human destruction in a harsh environment. The description presented in this poem is far from the world we know. It is entirely possible, however, for human ...

In the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot offers a critical and pessimistic vision of the modern spiritual condition T.S. Eliot¡s poem, ironically titled a ¡§love song¡, is carefully constructed in a series of fragments; the consequent tonal and structural discontinuity, as well ...

Every human institution has a guiding mission statement or philosophy. Yet there is no specific global plan for humanity's future. Without a plan, coincidence determines the destination. Instead of leaving its fate up to chance, humanity should select its own destination. To succeed in achieving su...

We have all seen the movie Jurassic Park, Some may have even read the book. Both illustrate the dangers of letting science get too out of hand. In this story a scientist with goals of financial gain uses breakthroughs in cloning to interfere with nature by recreating dinousaurs that died off mill...

American Beauty American Beauty is a movie that exposes preconceived notions about living in suburban America. This movie also becomes a commentary on the human condition while exposing the raw truth of a dysfunctional family. The Burnhams Lester, Carolyn, and Jane start out as the typical middle-...

Dear friends, I wrote this paper originally for a college course, but I felt compelled to share briefly with you about my search for purpose in life. I've always been a Christian, but recently the Lord has taught me to trust in Him and guided me to develop a true passion for living. I share ...

In 1886, Tolstoy wrote a story entitled, The Death of Ivan Ilych, which is about a man who discovers that he lived his life in vain. The story of Ivan Ilych offers commentary on the bourgeois class, and it's effect on the human soul. Ivan Illych lived his life trying to conform to a set standar...

The Great Gatsby is an exploration of the American dream as it exists in a corrupt period, and it is an attempt to determine that concealed boundary that divides the reality from the illusions, of which seems more real than the reality itself. Scott Fitzgerald puts forward his criticism of the socie...