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Example research essay topic: Church Of The Second Chance Church Of The Second Ian - 1,051 words

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... on the corner of Seventh Street. Anne Tyler in her novel, Saint Maybe, shows ordinary people and their ordinary lives. She displays the fact that people in this world are only human and are hence bound to make mistakes, yet they struggle to survive with the attempt to work out the problems they face in relationships and communication. Saint Maybe is an involving story, played out over many years, with appealing characters that grow and evolve.

It also provokes thoughts about so many things: religion, redemption, the randomness of life, but above all, the nature of family and how it too affects the course of life. The journey of the seventeen-year-old protagonist, Ian Bedloe, begins when he doesn't imagine the consequences of his actions. He suspects there is more to Lucy's past and to the problems of her present, than either Danny or the rest of the family has acknowledged. And one night, when Ian's plans for a romantic evening with his girlfriend-indeed, it is the night he plans to lose his virginity-are disrupted by having to baby-sit Lucy's children longer than he was supposed to, Ian becomes enraged. And so, on the way home, Ian tells his brother what he suspects about Lucy, and also mentions that the daughter, for whom Danny abandoned his studies to marry Lucy, is not his child. In disbelief and horror, Danny commits suicide by driving his car into a wall.

This tragedy shatters the Bedloe family, but the family rebuilds into a nontraditional grouping in which blood matters less than love -- and love is not automatic but grows through years of familiarity. And the family-building is driven more by chance than choice -- as, the characters learn, most of life is; very little turns out how they had planned, but they make the best of what they " re dealt. The following year while Ian is away at college, Lucy kills herself with drug overdose, and the daughter (along with the two other of Lucy's children from a previous marriage) has to be cared for by Ians rapidly aging parents, and he can hardly bear the weight of the guilt on his conscience. He rightly recognizes that the night of Danny's death will change his life forever. Further, because of his doubts over the veracity of what he told Danny, and the very fact that he had said anything, Ian is racked by guilt over his role in Danny's, and now also Lucy's, death. Ian wishes that causing somebody's suicide was something for which one could go to prison, for at least then he would have an identifiable way of paying for what he had done.

As it is, he simply wants to confess what he has done. He recognizes the importance of confession, both to "unburden" his own conscience and to test his reading of the situation with others. But Ian initially finds it difficult to do so, primarily because his family and girlfriend do not want to bear the burden of bad news. Or, more strongly put, they might not want to face the truth of what Ian has done.

He seeks out religion to help him deal with his guilt but it repels him with its shallow and sterile face of formality. But one day he wanders into a storefront church intriguingly called The Church of the Second Chance. For Ian, the driving force of life is the Church of the Second Chance, which shows him a way to channel his guilt over complicity in the family tragedy. This church's main doctrine is that total forgiveness will come when one offers concrete, practical reparation for the committed offense.

Christ makes up for the difference between the maximum reparation sacrifice one can offer and the damage caused by the sinful behavior. God wants to know how far youll go to undo the harm youve done (pg. 123), the Reverend tells Ian. Its the religion of atonement and complete forgiveness Its the religion of the Second Chance (pg. 124). And in Ians case, this means a beginning of a new life. He steps away from his education and becomes an apprentice, but he does so hoping to find an insular world of inanimate objects.

Such a desire signals an intensified withdrawal from the vagaries of human communication and the vulnerability of human relationships. Ian participates fully in the Church's program of Good Works, and he takes full responsibility for raising the three children. Unfortunately, Ian seems to think he ought to do these things in order to earn forgiveness. After rightly insisting to his father that Christian life requires a commitment of one's entire being, Ian mistakenly draws the wrong conclusion.

The changes in his life, he tells his father, are "something I have to do for myself, to be forgiven (pg 127). Rather than seeing a changed way of life as a consequence of God's forgiveness, Ian sees forgiveness as something one has to earn through an extensive penance. In the process, Ian becomes very cautious in his life. He eventually does discover some grace precisely through the ordinariness of his life.

He recognizes that "You could never call it a penance, to have to take care of these three. They were all that gave his life color, and energy, and... well, life. " Even more, Ian discovers a sense of new life through his encounter with, and eventual marriage to, Rita -- a woman hired to "un clutter" the Bedloe house. As Alexander Pope once said, a man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is by saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

It is important that a person learns from their mistakes and take out a valuable lesson learned through their decisions and experiences, as life is a constant journey full of such experiences. The world does not stop for anyones sake; it simply keeps going and does not put into consideration that the day did not go accordingly to plan, and to understand this is and move on is what builds character. In the novels On the Road and Saint Maybe, Kerouac and Tyler make this notion visible to the readers. ps. My essay is original. The one on this link web is plagiarized.


Free research essays on topics related to: second chance, danny, lucy's, forgiveness, ian

Research essay sample on Church Of The Second Chance Church Of The Second Ian

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