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Example research essay topic: Eastern Africa Main Hero - 1,896 words

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... student, showed counter-perspectives to Augie's future life. He considered that Augie was too ambitious. You want too much, and therefore if you miss out you blame yourself too hard. But this is all a dream.

The big investigation today is into how bad a guy can be, not how good he can be. You dont keep up with the times. Youre going against history. Or at least you should admit how bad things are, which you dont do either (Bellow, 437). Padilla, like Clem, pointed that Augie should become more realistic.

During his talk with Clem, Augie determined his new vision of life: axial lines of life, with respect to which you must be straight or else your existence is merely clownery, hiding tragedy When striving stops, there they are as a gift. I was lying on the couch here before and they suddenly went quivering right straight through me. Truth, love, peace, bounty, usefulness, harmony! (Bellow, 450) His peaceful community would be based on love. It would be an ideal community.

But Clem pointed that Augie wants to be king in the community and his ideas are personal utopia. Augie decided to embody his utopia ideas and marry Stella. But the marriage was not happy as all of his affaires. In the final chapters of the book Augie met Mintouchian who finally explained the basic drive of human life. He said: "You must take your chance on what you are. And you cant sit still.

I know this double poser, that if you make a move you may lose but if you sit still you will decay. But what will you lose? You will not invent better than God or nature or turn yourself into the man who lacks no gift or development before you make the move. This is not given to us" (Bellow, 512). Frankly speaking, Augie had the same drive in him: he tried to take a chance. But the main hero could not determine whom, exactly, he wanted to be.

The end of the novel is unexpected. Augie returned from his another escape, Jacqueline. He started to laugh reading an article. Having looked back on his own existence, Augie thought that his life was a kind of discovery of America. But America is a land of possibilities, constant struggles of a man to realize his own, unique fate. But was Augie's life successful?

What was his fate? Could he realize his unique fate? The author left the questions to the reader to judge. Another book is A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul.

It is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim. He is a representative of more practical type of personalities who is looking for his place in the life during difficult times in his country. The novel starts with the words about mans destiny said by Sir Video: The world is what it is, men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it (Naipaul, 9). It is clear that the world is not a commercial enterprise.

People have no certain path to follow, but they have a chance to become somebody. When he says that those who are nothing have no place in this world, the man means that everyone determines his destiny himself. And Salim tried to be somebody: "My wish was not to be good, ... but to make good. " (Naipaul, 20) The main hero, Salim, was from non-practicing Muslim family, Indian traders, who had lived in eastern Africa hundreds of years. He lives in a small, growing city in a country very like Zaire or Uganda. The book shows the relationship between power, ideology and social life, representing narration from Salim's observation.

Salim is the astute observer. He can read human motives and draws sophisticated conclusions from them. The main hero pointed: "So from an early age I developed the habit of looking, detaching myself from a familiar scene and trying to consider it as from a distance" (Naipaul, 15). But he has nothing positive or optimistic from his observation. Salim is introduced as a person with no culture, no identity, no family, no flag, and no religious sense. The man confessed that he felt insecurity because of the lack of true religion" (16) Salim rejected his fate and tried to master it alone: "I could be master of my fate only if I stood alone. " He did not want to accept his fate of exile without the right to success. "I could no longer submit to fate.

My wish was not to be good in the way of our tradition, but to make good" (Naipaul, 20). Salim lived in the times of political and social changes in eastern Africa: historical upheaval and social breakdown. He considered that he should be a great man with great opportunities. Salim said: 'Brilliant and terrifying' Observer I had to be the man who was doing well and more than well, the man whose drab shop concealed some bigger operation that made millions. I had to be the man who had planned it all, who had come to the destroyed town at the bend in the river because he had foreseen the rich future. He opened a shop in a town on the bend of the river.

But "a bend in the river" can be treated to post-colonial Africa. Certainly, the political equation is reflected on the affairs of the state itself. The reader sees Africa of the bush, poverty and ignorance. Salim gained success but soon the man understood that he had no future in a country ruled by president for life. It made him give up everything and look for escape... "The bush runs itself. But there is no place to go, " (Naipaul, 67) says Selim's friend Ferdinand.

The political order in the country fell apart; and Salim decided to emigrate. All the characters he had met confirmed his decision and his hopeless conclusion: Africa is a hopeless case because "we have no means of understanding a fraction of the thought and science and philosophy and law that have gone to make that outside world. We simply accept it" (Naipaul, 142). Salim had an unusual luggage: "pain and experience" and decided to "rejoin the world, to break out of the narrow geography of the town, to do [his] duty to those who depend on [him]" (Naipaul, 230). He escapes from the town. The man controlled his fate.

His fate is different from Africa's bad fate where "nobody's going anywhere, " where "everybody is going to hell" and "nothing has any meaning" because "there is no place to go to" (Naipaul, 272). In the epigram of the novel, the readers are introduced with Salim's existential philosophical reflections. It "the world is what it is" the people of Third World have become nothing and allowed themselves to become nothing. There is no place in the world for them.

Salim emphasized that people of the post-colonial world had never attempted to meet the challenge. Even if they meet the challenge, they become filled with rage. It is evident that the result of political and social uncertainties was absolute destruction. Salim himself is an embodiment of destruction.

He did not only reject Yvette, his love, as an external factor but even beat her violently in the impulse of "African rage." Yvette helped him to discover himself. Salim came to the conclusion that he should depend on himself in order to find his own way. Salim's character is not stable. From time to time he becomes innocent, and at other times capable, and at other times adrift.

His relationships with other personages such as Yvette, Raymond, Father Human and others are ambiguous. Salim is a kind of person who can easily shift his ground and change his opinion. As it was said in The Adventures of Augie March, a persons character determines his fate. It seems that Salim's fate strongly depend on his character. It is non consistant and full of curves. But Salim is not as passive as Augie is.

He tried to manage his fate. When the rich ones ran from the dreadful places where they " ve made their money and find some nice safe country" (Naipaul, 234), Salim decides to emigrate again. Salim's attitude towards things that should be and could not be changed was quite different from a lot of others at that time. He was able to learn other mistakes and it helped him to avoid traps. Indar's London, whom Salim comes to know, said about fate: "There could be no going back; there was anything to go back to. We had become what the world had made us; he had to live in the world as it existed.

The younger Indar was wiser. Use the airplane; trample on the past... Get rid of that idea of the past; make the dream-like scenes of loss ordinary" (Naipaul, 244). Indar's words reflect Africa itself: it was left stranded between a heritage to which it cannot return and a world it is not permitted to enter. Most of all, almost all African characters in the novel were represented as weak and pessimistic. They had no courage to say "no." They could easily be bought.

Naipaul pointed that there were no free Africans. The people of the town at the bend in the river easily accepted their fate: the fact that they are hopeless. If some of them rebelled, the situation did not turn to better; it even got worse. It is evident that they themselves were responsible for their misfortune since "the world is what it is. " Salim's fate would not be so bad. He decided to "rejoin the world, to break out of the narrow geography of the town, to do [his] duty to those who depend on [him]" (Naipaul, 230). But by the end of the novel, he was introduced as a person full of nihilistic ideology with insoluble problems.

Salim's existentialist thoughts and comments concerning his own experience draw the picture of his pessimistic journey from one cycle of destruction to another. The whole novel A bend in the river was labeled pessimistic. Having examined the both works, the readers can come to conclusion that a lot of factors determine fate of the person. Political conflicts or social uncertainties can be accused. But, may be, the most important factor that influence ones destiny is personal characteristics. Could a person fight for his happiness or sit and wait passively?

Could a man manage his fate or only observe and take for grand what happens. Salim and Aguei, so different at the beginning, came to the same path of a lot of insoluble problems: Salim though his nihilism, Aguei through his pessimism. Bibliography: Bruce, King. V. S. Naipaul.

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. Christopher, Wise. The Garden Trampled: Or, the Liquidation of African Culture in V.

S. Naipaul's a Bend in the River. College Literature, Paterson University, vol. : 23, issue: 3, 1996. Robert R. , Dutton. Critical review: The Adventures of Augie March In Saul Bellow. Boston: Twayne Publishers, pp. 42 - 74, 1982.

Robert, Davis. Augie Just Wouldn't Settle Down. The New York Times, September 20, 1963. Saul, Bellow. The Adventures of Augie March Author.

New York: Penguin, 1953. V. S. , Naipaul. A Bend in the River. New York: Penguin, 1979.


Free research essays on topics related to: main hero, make good, post colonial, eastern africa, v s

Research essay sample on Eastern Africa Main Hero

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