Tag Archives: human nature

Wordsworth’s “Prelude”

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In the few lines that make up a single scene of Wordsworth’s “Prelude”, the personified Nature encourages the young Wordsworth to steal a boat and admonishes him for failing to resist the urge. Although the young Wordsworth only focused on the method Nature used to correct him, the adult Wordsworth recognized the contradiction and believed that Nature used this event to guide him and help him understand and control his human desires, and, in the process, demonstrate that the relationship between an individual and nature is the same as that of parent and child. Overall, this scene emphasizes the the contrast between the nature of an individual and Nature, the experience and the perception, and the child and the adult. Through these contrasts Wordsworth demonstrates that his perception of his surroundings were influenced by his own emotions and feelings as a child and by what he, as an adult, perceives the emotions he felt or should have felt as a boy.

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Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings” as a Look Into Racism and Life in General.

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Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings” is a wonderful look into the mind of a girl in her battles with racism, sexism and coming to terms with herself. Her story begins at the age of three on the way Momma’s store after her mother put her on a train and ends years later after the birth of her son. Through out this time Maya must learn to live with others perception of her and even more difficultly herself.

Maya’s rape set the stage for the rest of her life. It starts off for Maya as just searching for affection and she begins to look at Mr. Freeman as a father figure, however Freeman takes advantage of this and after two smaller incidents rapes her. Freeman not only rapes her but rather than being a so-called crime of passion plans it specifically.

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The Short Story: “Samuel”, “Battle Royal” and “The Use of Force”.

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The short story characteristically focuses on a single incident, a bit of action that is usually dramatic and ends in some sort of revelation”a flash of irony, comprehension, or insight. What happens is crucial and pivotal to the story. Because of its length if the story is to make a strong impression on us, it will do so not merely through the intensity of its concentrated action but through the implications the event suggests. This idea is expertly portrayed by three different authors in the short stories “Samuel”, “Battle Royal” and “The Use of Force”.

Samuel by Grace Paley is the story of a boy who was accidentally killed while playing on a train. The accident was caused when one rider pulled the brake cord of the train causing it to jerk to a stop, throwing Samuel from the rear of the train. This one person may or may not have purposefully intended to cause the injury.

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Thoughts on la Rouchefoucauld’s use of the Scientific Method for Philosophy

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Philosophy is by definition any theory that can’t be proven scientifically. In La Rouchefoucauld’s case this is especially obvious as he attempted to explain in terms of philosophy the behavior of humans because there was at his time no way to prove them scientifically. He used a version of the scientific method to arrive at his final maxims and although he couldn’t prove it in doing so he stumbled on to some very scientific principles.
In La Rouchefoucauld’s day humans where still popularly considered distant and distinct from animals however four centuries after La Rouchefoucauld the idea that humans are bound to nature just as animals is now becoming prevalent. Thus even though originally the maxims were written to be a sort of scientific understanding of humans they instead are a defendable philosophy. Although it does not make La Rouchefoucauld “laws” of human nature any less real, understanding the scientific basis of the laws allows one to understand not just the effect but also the cause of human nature.

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