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Example research essay topic: Human Life Modern World - 1,336 words

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... nt, she does the right thing, makes the right gesture... " Over the past year many people have sent me their take on the Grandmother and Misfit. Here are two of what I consider to be the best. Ruben de Tal writes: I thought the conversation at the end had at its core the primary discussion of animal vs.

metaphysical human nature. In other words, when the Misfit says of Jesus, "I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't... " and "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known... if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now... " he is in effect expressing the basic plight of human awareness: while we are conscious and aware of ourselves, we are also basically animals with violent and primal drives at our cores, so part of that awareness demands so rise above the animal. However we derive this, it must give us some sense of value beyond the physical constraints of our bodies and world; otherwise, as the Misfit puts it, "'... it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can -- by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness, ' he said and his voice had become almost a snarl. " However, the problem is that since no one has definite physical evidence of anything beyond what we see around us (note the Misfit's observations: "'Ain't a cloud in the sky, ' he remarked, looking up at it. 'Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither... '" and, "'Turn to the right, it was a wall, ' The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky. 'Turn to the left, it was a wall.

Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor... '"), any belief in our metaphysical value as human beings -- in the value of human life -- must therefore be just that: a belief, and nothing more. Even the grandmother feels it: "Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods.

She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, 'Jesus, Jesus, ' meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing. " It is a leap of faith we must take, however we want to word it, whatever religious or spiritual (or anti-religious, anti-spiritual) ideology we wish to use. And ultimately, what the Misfit sees (and eventually the grandmother as well) is that when we live in a world where the religious and spiritual dogma of yesterday are no match for the scientific, coldly observation-based and amoral context of the modern world, and when there are no other adequate answers to this question of how to place higher metaphysical value on human life, we are left with nothing but what we can see around us, and we have no means with which to answer the animal violence of someone like the Misfit. His frustration in not being there to see whether or not Jesus really did personify the metaphysical is the deep frustration and sense of loss that the modern world feels in not having Proof, in not having something adequate with which to approach these questions in the face of cold science and observation, and in being asked to perform the quaint, somewhat silly act of simply putting faith in something we cannot see with our own eyes. When the grandmother faces him for the last time and makes one final attempt to answer him, the futility of this is demonstrated starkly, coldly, and with all the animal violence and despair and nihilism inevitable in such a world: "'I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't, ' The Misfit said. 'I with I had of been there, ' he said, hitting the ground with his fist. 'It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known.

Listen lady, ' he said in a high voice, 'if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now. ' His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, 'Why you " re one of my babies. You " re one of my own children!' She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. " In the end, O'Connor is putting to us the same disturbing question the Misfit puts to the grandmother: how do we answer this nihilism in a way that makes sense within the context of the modern world? Judging by the state of affairs, I'd say we still have not come up with anything much better than the grandmother's pitiful response, and our society and world have the shotgun wounds to prove it. As an agnostic (that's about as much as I'll commit to any sense of "religious" belief) I have struggled with this same question myself and have only come up with the idea that there are expedients -- some more worthwhile and valuable than others (art, love, human interaction) -- but that ultimately, there is no answer to O'Connor's question other than to persist in asking it.

I think it comes down to the sense that as long as we keep asking the question, we maintain our value as humans because we not only exercise our uniquely human ability to question, but we also keep some kind of hope alive by simply implying that there is a question to ask and an answer to seek. When the Misfit describes himself in the following, "'My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. "You know, " Daddy said, "it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latter. He's going to be into everything!" '" He is making clear that there was a time when he WAS good -- when he still did care enough to ask the questions that matter, that make us human. But somewhere along the way, something happened, and he lost that and became what he is today -- not necessarily a good man, not necessarily a bad man -- just an amoral man, and that is the worst kind of man of all, because that is not so much a man as an animal, with no sense of value for human life and no possibility for redemption. The scariest part of it all, of course, is that The Misfit is not a misfit at all -- he is our world, he is a reflection of ourselves -- our own amorality, our own loss of humanity, our own spiritual emptiness. Nancy Barendse writes: The conversation between the grandmother and the Misfit gets the grandmother to the point where she can see and accept the action of grace in her own life and extend it to another.

The Misfit gets her to the place where she can be a good woman (as opposed to a lady), making him in a sense a good man. I think a more obvious foreshadowing of the family's future than the graveyard is the description of the grandmother's attire. She dresses so that anyone finding her dead on the side of the road would know she is a lady.


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Research essay sample on Human Life Modern World

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