Life Choices in Effect--Forever

Everybody chooses to live their lives ,and believe in what they truly believe is right, and these choices can affect their lives forever. This reflects every character in the novel, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. In every place in this novel you find a character who chose to live their lives differently for certain reasons. Some may have taken the right direction for them and some may not have taken it for their sake, but possibly for somebody else's sake. What are you really living life for and who are you living it for? These really are the eternal questions in life that we must sometime or another answer.

Many people live their lives never really thinking anything of it, only ever thinking: this is life, it will go on and someday I will die. There are only that few selective people who take life into meaning. This is real life, I should try and live every day to the fullest because strange things happen, and I could be here one second and gone the next. Life doesn't go on forever or eternity. It will end someday and I hope that, that someday is no time soon. I shall do what I have to, but enjoy life. God put us on this earth for a reason and we should enjoy it while it lasts. Some of the characters in The Power and Glory, think of this stuff and others do not. Some believe in parts of this and some don't believe in any and are like the people who take life as an advantage, they don't understand that’s it’s a privilege to live on this planet we call earth and they, like said before; should live as if they would die the next day--to the fullest.

The whiskey priest is one of those people who lives his life for somebody else's sake. He takes life seriously and truly believes he is doing everything he can for the people that he is living his life for. That person that he is living his life for: God. Someone who put him on this earth to make something of himself, instead of doing something bad that could have effects on him, or people around him. He is a priest--someone who is supposed to be serving good duties to his community and country and the people all around him. Not the case in this novel; he is on the run the entire book. Priests' are not allowed in the country, Mexico, that they live in. They are not good people and are being chased and killed by the government so that they will not exist anymore. The government does not think that there should be anymore priests so that everybody can believe in what the government wants you to believe in. They don't want you to believe something else so you don't go against them, which is why they don't want any more priests so they can make people believe in something that really matters to them.

Why does he choose to live his life for somebody else than if he is continuously on the run? The Whiskey Priest lives his life for the one and only God. He knows that according to the law, everything he does is wrong. He is doing something against the government for God. The Priest knows that his duty on the Earth was to tell people and let them pray for the good things on earth. Help them in time of need and do whatever they need for God--the person he is living his life for.

There are more than just the Whiskey Priest who lives their way a certain way and wondering what they are really living their life for and this person is the mestizo. This man--the mestizo, he lives his life like a dog. He is really a dread to society and doesn't do anything good for the country or anyone else. He lives for nobody and doesn't stand for anything. Judas--he is just like him in the bible. Somebody who is no good and goes against somebody who he says he believes in and trades them in so that they can get something from it just like Judas did with Jesus; when Judas went against Jesus. Which would be when the mestizo told the Whiskey Priest that he was a good Catholic but then turned him in for good for himself. Somebody like the mestizo is worthless and no good so he answer to life is he is not living his life for nobody and nothing.

Someone who lives his life going by orders every day. Doing things that may be wrong but has to do them for his for job is the way that the Lieutenant lives his life. He does things that he knows is wrong every day but has to do it because he works for the government and that is that he is paid to do. He never admits in the novel that a man like him; someone who has bad effects on the community and does things just because he is told to; is wrong or in his case does something wrong. The lieutenant is the one looking for the Whiskey Priest the entire novel to kill him and vanish him from earth itself. In the end though, the lieutenant doesn't really know his answer to life's existential questions but others do. He doesn't really understand that he is living his life for the government. Doing everything that they want him to do by giving him orders that he must follow. He never takes time for himself and can't in the way he is living so his answer to life would be. He is living his life for the government and living to follow their orders.

The lieutenant chooses to live his life like that, the Mestizo chooses to live his life like a dog being a dread to society, and the Whiskey Priest chooses to live his life for God, knowing that what he does is against the law. Everybody lives their lives for a certain way and for certain people sometimes. On the run or chasing someone, living on the road or living your life constantly wondering what it would be like if you didn’t take this route when you chose what life style you were going to live. Everybody in the novel and the entire world choose to live their lives a certain way and those choices can affect their lives forever.

Escaping the Real World

an essay response to Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Do you ever wonder what you would do, or what would happen, if you were stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; lost and alone with nothing around you but as much water as you could imagine? Almost anything is possible. You never know what might happen. Some people may go insane or crazy. Some may start to hallucinate or dehydrate. Maybe even their body would start to eat its self because of hunger and starvation. Rarely would you stay normal and have nothing wrong happen to them. Pi has witnessed the worst that can happen when you’re alone in the middle of the pacific starving to death just trying to get along day by day. A young man about the age of 14 gets lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after the ship he was traveling on, sinks suddenly. He gets thrown into a lifeboat with some other members. The novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel has two stories. Being lost in the ocean, Pi makes an alter ego for himself, making this his escapism to live his life in the ocean, fake. Not having to face his fears in real life , making himself think that everything is going to be ok. There are two different stories that Pi tells, one is his alter ego and escapism and one is the real thing.

Pi starts out his journey traveling with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a massive 450 pound Bengal tiger. Fears immediately take over him when he notices who he is on his voyage with. The only thing running through his mind is that is going to be eaten sooner than later. It will happen as soon as one of the animals gets hungry enough to start eating the others. Something from the back of his mind finally comes forward and he realizes that all of the passengers on board with him are used to having boundaries, and now that they don’t, they don’t feel safe or protected any more. Now, he doesn’t know what is going to happen or what they are going to do. Pi knows that all he can do is stay out of their way and avoid them. While traveling through the water many events start to happen. Even though the animals all feel unprotected and in danger the dominant animal out of all them, which would be the tiger, starts to take control and mark his territories with the other animals. He lets them know what his area is and what they can have. That doesn’t last very long when the animals start to get hungry and have nothing to eat. First, the zebra was killed—the hyena had killed it and then started to eat it. Soon to be the orangutan and the hyena either killed by each other or by Richard Parker, the massive beast. Things went on like that until all the animals were gone—dead, and he thought he was alone to survive by himself in an ocean that fills more than half our earth.

Suddenly he noticed that they were not all gone, the tiger was still on the boat and was going to get hungry sooner or later. Pi realized this and looked the boat over and over again for food or something to help him until he came to a box filled with supplies,to help a survivor. Something in it said that he should build a raft, so he did out of other oars and life jackets. From the time that it was finished he slept on the raft and really stayed on it all the time for almost the entire trip. His life went on like this, still not knowing where to go or what to do. Although, Pi had boundaries of his own like the animals had as well. He knew where not to go or what not to do on the boat so that Richard Parker would not come after him.

Boundaries and animals in the middle of the ocean stranded from a sunken boat don’t really sound right which is why Martel made another part of this story. In the end of this novel, Pi starts to realize, once he has gotten back into reality—into the real world, that all that time he has been trapped on the boat with real people—his mom; someone who loved him so dearly and who he loved greatly with his heart. A crazy crew man; a man filled who disgusted many people, like cutting the boys leg off just for bait so that he could survive, and a poor boy who hardly had say in anything and just got lost there with them. So, what was Pi’s life really while he was on the boat with real people rather than animals? Did his imagination made up to make his fears go away from the real world? He didn’t notice until now, but he really was lost in the middle of the Pacific with some people he didn’t know and some people he did know. The tragic part about knowing he was on the boat with real people was the fact the he then knew that instead of animals dying it was the people on the boat. Something that broke his heart, like his mother’s death.

Now, the entire animal story is coming together to relate to the human story. His imagination made up the animal story to relate to what was happening in real life just not with real people. In the novel Richard Parker—the 450 pound Bengal tiger was really Pi himself and maybe his imagination really did not make this up, Pi just imagined it so he could ‘escape’ from reality, it was his escapism. He really didn’t want to admit to himself that he really did kill some of the other people on the boat because of hunger and starvation, and that he did some of the actions 2that ‘Richard Parker’ did. Everything starts to pair up with him, the people, and the animals on the boat. One of the main things that pieces everything together in this novel is that fact that when Pi and supposedly Richard Parker hit Mexico, this 450 pound Bengal tiger runs away never to be seen again. This was because this was Pi’s alter ego, another part of him that he doesn’t need anymore now that he has reached land and will get his normal life back again. He doesn’t need to pretend about who he is anything anymore, he has everything there for him now.

Pi lives a very different life while living in the Pacific but somehow he survives, now he has survived a sinking cargo ship, crazy animals or humans—still unknown, and an island that was floating, eating away everything that was on it slowly but surely. It is unbelievable how he made it all the way without starving to death, or hallucinating, or getting eaten alive, but there is a reason that he made it. His escapism—the thing that made him escape real life and believe that it wasn’t as dangerous as it really was. If he didn’t go to his own little world, and just kept it how it was, living on the boat with the humans he would have clearly gone crazy because of knowing that he was there with a crazy man and his mother. He would do so much if he really knew that he was on it with those people. He would have fought to keep his mother alive as long as possible, he would have fought to help the boy stay alive, and he would have fought to get the crazy man off the ship as soon as possibe, but he didn’t and that’s what kept him alive. We all escape something in our lives at some time or another and this one thing the he escaped just saved his life.

Jealousy: Everyone's Enemy

Great Expectations Final Response

Love is all around us whether we know it or not. But there is something even greater that comes with love that many people don’t even notice: jealousy. Somebody is always going to be jealous of this person, or that relationship, and that cleary shows in many places in the novel Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens.

Throughout this novel there is love in many places, but there is also jealousy right along with love. In the beginning of this novel Pip thinks that he finds his true love when he meets Estella, the mistress who lives with Miss Havisham. He truly believes that they were meant to be together forever and will some day grow up and get married. That is: until Pip see’s Estella with another man—Drummel. Pip gets very jealous because he can see that Estella is falling for him and he is afraid that Estella will forget all about him and in the end go with Drummel instead of him. Pips jealousy is starting to come out because of Estella and Drummel, but that is not the only part of this novel that jealousy happens.

Orlick, a man who is learning blacksmithing with Joe and Pip. He is learning the art of blacksmithing just like Pip is, and they are going just fine, until Pip starts moving higher in society. He is learning more, doing better things and Orlick starts to get jealous. He wonders why Pip is so much better even though he is younger than him. He also wonders why he is not that high and that is when Orlick starts to get jealously, and that is how their friendship starts to break apart.

Those are just a few points in Great Expectations showing jealousy and how even if there is love, jealousy still happens. People really don’t notice what love can do to people or what love and jealousy can even to do to a friendship.

The Perfect Time... Veterans Essay

There are many times we could honor our military heroes for all that they do for us, but there are some better, “more perfect” times time to honor our military heroes. When is that? Is a question that we all ask ourselves at some point in time. When should we take a moment out of the day and just think to ourselves that someone is across the world fighting for us just so that we always stay safe. Getting injured, shot, some even killed just to keep our lives safe and with one less worry off our minds. But maybe we should put them into our minds a little more often, even just once a week.
When you are sitting at work or school—bored, having nothing to, think of the soldiers; the ones fighting for our lives, even think of the ones who have already fought. They have already sacrificed their lives; willing to die for our country. Maybe you know someone who was in the army, or someone who was a marine or pilot in the war, or maybe you know someone who is over there right now and you just pray every day hoping that when it is there time to come back to the U.S. they will—safely.
There is a time in history that made our country change and that day is the day we call 9/11. On September 11 something very tragic happened to our country—we were attacked. Something that we never thought would happen to us. Many lives were lost that day and many people were severely injured. But there were still the firemen, and the police men who still helped everybody they could. They could have been hurt or killed too from something falling on them or crushing them but they still went in. They too, risked their lives for others and that did happen as well. Some firemen were lost that day which is why they too should be honored as much as military heroes. Maybe they are not heroes for the United States but they do their duty and they might put their lives in danger as well.
There are many times to honor our military heroes but then again there should be a time that we honor the heroes that work around us. The ones in our communities that keep us safe too.

The Good Earth Essay~

The Good Earth written by Pearl Buck was written during a time of cruelty and unfairness. Families were nothing like they are now--men were practically only used for managing their fields and land that they owned, and for having enough money to buy food and put it on the table at supper. On the other hand, women were only used for producing sons that would grow up to become young men to over look their father's field when the father had passed. Wang’s life changes very greatly in this book and even though Wang might not notice it he changes as well.

"It was Wang Lung's marriage day" (pg. 1) He had not known what his life was to become after he married his new wife. It was his day to go the city and pick up this new part of his life from the House of Hwang-- the richest house in the city. Before he gone to pick up his wife he grew up as a farmer living in the country growing many great harvest. They were not wealthy but had enough money for things that were important to them. Wang had his money saved up for his wedding day for a very long time and now he was able to use it. When Wang had gone into town he felt that he had power with the money that he had brought with him to the city. While he was there he spent much more than usual. "He went to the market, then and bought two pounds of pork… then hesitating he bought also six ounces of beef.” (pg. 11) But Wang knew that it was worth it know that this was start if his new life. After Wang had made it through the entire city to the House of Hwang he was almost afraid or embarrassed to walk in with the few things in his hand—but he had to do it if he was going to really continue his life. So Wang did—he walked into the gates of the House of Hwang not knowing what to expect. When he was in and saw the Great Mistress she had know by his looks that he was there for the servant; the one that he was going to be getting married to. The mistress said only a few things to Wang; she had said “you see, she has a strong body and the square cheeks of her kind. She will work well for you in the field…she is not beautiful… [And] she had not beauty enough to tempt my sons and grandsons…” (Pg. 18) Knowing this, Wang expected that she would practically be “property” to him, property named O-lan, to give him sons and help in the kitchen and in the fields.

After his marriage feast and a celebration he was back to living his normal life just with another person in his household. O-lan only did as she was told and nothing else… She still did just as she did in the House of Hwang but more. She still cooked and clean for Wang, his father, and herself, but now in her new life as well she worked in the fields with Wang Lung just as the Old Mistress told him she would. She worked day and night with him until it was time for dinner when she would go in and prepared it. Then one day she while she was in the fields with Wang she told him “I am with child” (pg. 30) Wang Lung was shocked, and ecstatic all at the same time, he didn’t know what to say to him it was like she had just said… “I have brought you tea, or we can eat. I seemed as ordinary as that to her!” (pg. 30) During the time that she was with child, she still worked in the fields until the day of when she had to lay her hoe down and go in, but when Wang Lung had told her to get someone from the village or even the Great House to help all she said was “No… when I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms…” (pg. 33) So he did as he was told, he waited outside the room until her heard soft baby cries. He then found out that she had just given him a son that would grow up to be a great boy to over look his fields when he was old and couldn’t get over to his fields anymore. From that day on Wang knew that she would be good enough to give him sons and many of them.

After that point, after O-Lan birthed children for Wang, she became nothing more than a slave. The day after the child was born she was up to her usual routine again, except she did not go into the fields, but still did everything in the kitchen and house. Their life, as before, continued on as it had been just with another extra person in their house. That is how O-lan and Wang’s life continued for a long time, never even talking. Just work all the time through many years! Then the nightmare that had always worried Wang was when the drought happened. There started to become many people around the city hungry and starving. People had started to get angry, there started to be “gangs” of robbers coming into the city killing people, and stealing food and anything that they could find. Wang could not stand this; he knew something had to be done. So he packed up the family and told them “we are going to catch the fire wagon and ride to the south.” (Pg. 91) They did so… they caught the wagon and made tit there much faster than if they would have walked, especially in the drought.

As they arrived in the south their life changed again, but this time, much more dramatically than the last. In the south it was almost as if there were rules; you could only live in the gates if you had money and lots of it. Then there were the people who were just like Wang Lung used to be—farmers who made just enough money to feed their families and sell there harvests’ at the market every week. Lastly were the people that Wang and his family had just become… poorest of the village, and known as the “beggars”. When Wang had gotten to the city he had gotten information that he was to build a house of mats along the great wall, that way the “beggars” will get money—from the wealthier. So “Wang Lung observed the huts and began to shape his own mats” (pg. 97) They soon had another place to live although this time not as nice. The moment after they all got situated in their little house they were all sent to the curb starting this new part of their life except Wang Lung; he was sent to the city to see if there were any jobs available there and sure enough there was—a rickshaw puller. His job was to pull people around the city and get money for doing so. On his first day he didn’t know anything except that in the south they called people like Wang “country bumpkins” and what he was to do for his job. He had no clue that people who knew that someone was from the farm or “outside” paid lower than if they were paying someone from their own city. Wang went through a whole day of carrying around people up, down an across the town and ended up with a lot of money for him; but he didn’t know that he was to pay for the rented rickshaw and that people ripped him off so really in the end he had just enough money so that his entire family could get a bowl of rice each from the free rice shop. That is how their life continued the entire time that Wang’s family lived in the south. Begging everyday, pulling people around the city, and getting food from the free rice shop almost everyday. Wang’s life has already changed greatly from him living in his nice village and then having to move to the south, the thing he doesn’t’ realize it that his life is still going to change and by change I mean dramatically.

Wang Lung and his family lived their lives like that for a long time. The same routine everyday—get up, beg, eat rice, go to bed, and do the same thing the next morning. Then they made a plan to rob the great house, and they did exactly as they planned. They robbed it and had gotten enough money to go back to their small village when they found out that everything there was all better. When they got home Wang had soon found out that while in the great house O-lan had gotten pearls, jewels, and gold’s. He asked how she had gotten those and she had answered…” I saw a loosened brick in the wall and I slipped there carelessly so no other soul could see and demand a share. I pulled the brick away, caught the shining, and put them into my sleeve.” (pg. 148) Wang Lung did not understand how a person who used to be so poor knew about the loosened brick and he asked her and again she only answered with a few sentences… “[Wang asked] how did you know… she answered…The rich are always afraid… I saw robbers in a bad year once… [People] ran hither and thither... Therefore I knew the meaning of a loosened brick.” (pg. 148) Wang was in shock that she actually knew that and to top it off remembering that, but this is when his life started to change. Now with the money that he had stolen and the pearls and gems that he had he felt that he had had the most money in the entire land when he found out that many in the House of Hwang were dying or they were getting poorer everyday. He went back to ignoring O-lan even when she constantly said “my vitals are on fire.” He started going to town almost everyday, he got workers to man his fields, he bought new clothes and he even started seeing another woman named Lotus. This continued for a long time until he finally decided to remodel his house and made Lotus his second wife and let her move into their house with them. O-lan didn’t speak to her, Lotus didn’t speak to O-lan—really no one ever talked in that house. Wang felt so rich that he didn’t speak to anyone nor cared for anyone else anymore except for his new wife Lotus. He was a man soon known around the city; he had bought land that was on the House of Hwang’s property, and he even made his house look like a small mansion.

He started thinking that life was supposed to go all around him and nobody else. Everything that he did was for him. He married almost all of his kids off on purpose—so he could have peace. Again something he did just for himself. He gave his uncles son money to go off to the war so that maybe he would be killed and he wouldn’t have to pay attention to him anymore. One day when his life was just so great—to him—he decided that he was going to buy the great House of Hwang. He was going to live a luxurious life there—he bought slave, gave each of his sons and their families their own courts and gave O-lan and Lotus their own courts as well. Although Wang did not get one thing that he wanted, he could only rent his part of the house, the other part not as wealthy people rented; they all lived in the same area. When Wang walked past them and even his kids walked past them the stuck their noses to the sky and acted as though they were disgusted with what those people were. Wang’s family didn’t respect anyone less wealthy as them. Wang did not notice something very important that had changed. He used to be those people; he may not remember it but he was, he was even poorer than some of the people who lived in the outer courts. He used to beg just to keep his family and himself alive and he doesn’t even remember and the sad part is that he taught his children to be disgusted with them as well and they were that too. Wang’s entire life has changes for the worse. The sad part of this all was that this was exactly how the Hwang’s started to fall apart; their family started to fall apart because they spent too much money just like Wang’s family was starting to do and they didn’t even know that this was happening to them.

Wang Lung changed greatly throughout the novel The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, but not in good way. He changed for the worse. He was a man who was always selfless and never thought about himself but for others around him and mostly his land, and now he has become some one that no one ever wants to become—a man of selfishness. Many people change for many different reasons but this was some thing that was changed for a bad reason.