Exploration of Ethics and the Environment

Human attitude to this life, this world, and its challenges may be criticized in a number of different ways, and, what is important, it is not actually easy to say that this attitude is correct and appropriate. Many people get used to take all things from this life for granted: they are able to hear, see, and feel just because they are human and have to have all these feelings; they can study, analyze, and earn money because it is an integral part of this life. Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Exploration of Ethics and the Environment specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The only thing that people cannot accept and wait with impatience because it just should happen is death. However, in fact, the only thing all people really deserve after they are born is death. Of course, it may sound strange, provocative, and unfair but still death is the only â€Å"thing† that does not choose people in accordance with some criteria or skills. The theme of death is evaluated in numerous literary and art works, and Don DeLillo’s White Noise is one of the brightest examples of how people are afraid of death, want to postpone it, and, in fact, can do nothing to avoid it. People are always eager to take as much as possible from this life without taking into consideration the necessity to be grateful for all this. However, they usually forget that nature has its own rules and demands, and people should consider its whims. To comprehend better the idea offered by Don DeLillo, it is possible to make use of Aldo Leopold’s The Land Ethics and to comprehend that this story is about survival and respect to nature that provides people with a variety of opportunities to be used, about love that has to be demonstrated in some particular cases, about fear people should have but not be guided by, and about emotions that are inherent to humans and have to be used for good, for safe, and for happiness of our future generations. White Noise as an Attempt to Fight Against the Fear of Death This life is too complicated to comprehend its peculiarities, challenges, and aspects within a short period. Many people try to spend the vast majority of their lives in order to realize what the essence of life is and why there are so many contradictions in this life. White Noise written by Don DeLillo is one of such possibilities to define the main aspects of life by means of evaluation of death as the major life counterpoise. At first, it is possible to see that the author wants to introduce one of the most important elements of human worth and salvation – to fight against the fear of death and to believe that â€Å"there is no death as we know it† (DeLillo 6). However, DeLillo contradicts himself with time and represents a character who cannot imagine this life without this fear and comes to one concrete conclusion: â€Å"What if death is nothing but sound? Electrical noise. You hear it forever. Sound all around. How awful. Uniform, white† (DeLillo 196). Such attitude proves that people are lost by their nature; they cannot divide the world of madness, confusion, and consumerism from the reality they have the right to live. Advertising Looking for essay on american literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More In one of his interviews, DeLillo admits: â€Å"I didn’t have illusion and reality in mind†¦ I’m interested in the way the play forms a kind of unending circular structure – it bends back on itself† (DeLillo and DePietro 23). However, it seems to be a bit difficult to comprehend a true meaning of white noise and its close connection to human life, to nature, and to the functions each part of this world has to perform. This is why it is possible to make use of some additional material that aims at describing main aspects of life and the peculiarities inheren t to it. The work by Aldo Leopold, The Land on Ethics is one of the powerful sources where the evaluation of people’s duties and lives is given from a number of educative perspectives. The Land Ethic and Leopold’s Exploration of Ethics The Land of Ethic is a unique opportunity to define the role of people in respect to nature and its rule. The author is not afraid to underline the supreme power of nature and its possibility to enslave people: he explains that â€Å"land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such† (Leopold 533). He underlines the importance of such ethic because its absence or, to be more exact, its lack has a number of negative outcomes. People have a kind of wrong attitude to land and its riches. First, it is necessary to admit that land resources are not eternal, and one day, all these sourc es may disappear. And when people demonstrate their egocentric nature just in the way of how Jack Gladney did in White Noise, these people may be under a terrible threat to conquer the land and enjoy its resources. But still people are only the consumers who have to follow particular rules, orders, and complete necessary functions. Jack Gladney fails to complete his functions, as it has to be, this is why he become available for challenges, fears, and discontents of this life. â€Å"As people jolted out of reality, we were released from the need to distinguish† (DeLillo 127). People become weak in order to distinguish their fears of dreams and reality, their duties and demands, their weak and strong sides. The main point that scares a lot is that people are blind to distinguish everything in the necessary way, and such work like White Noise is a kind of sarcastic way to explain people their mistakes and help to avoid them in future. Things that Influence Ethic Ethic in Whit e Noise and ethic in The Land Ethic have a number of similarities: first, the idea of consumerism may be properly explained by means of Leopold’s philosophy, second, the technological progress makes endless duplication possible, third, the role of mass media is crucial indeed for humans and the ways of how people receive and understand information, and finally, the process of industrialization that increases the number of threats people are afraid of but still feel a burning necessity for.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Exploration of Ethics and the Environment specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In his work, DeLillo represents American consumerism as a utopia people create for themselves to be enslaved and to be imprisoned. Without even realizing the idea of being caught by personal fears, people deprive themselves of the opportunity for consolation and escape from this nightmare. People truly believe that the use of technology can help them change this life and immunize them against fears, sufferings, and death. This is probably the most terrible failure because technology is regarded as human fate and a fear to lose the control over personal lives, words, and thoughts that are worsened by empty promises of technological progress. In addition to the technological influence, the impact of mass media has to be mentioned. â€Å"At breakfast, Babette read all our horoscopes aloud, using her storytelling voice† (DeLillo 16). The attention to this fact helps to comprehend that the vast majority of people are under the influence of media and trust it completely to get some kind of assurance about the next several hours. However, at the same time, they blindly trust the idea of industrialization and the possibility to prolong their lives, avoid death, and be ready to numerous challenges around. The result of this dream is dramatic: possible duplication of events, memories, and deta ils promotes the idea to repeat everyone day by day so that people lose the idea of reality and cannot define where their life begins and industrialization stops. People overuse the possibilities offered by nature and create unbelievable harm to themselves without even knowing it. This fact is scary, terrible, but true. Conclusion In general, the idea to unite human life and technology is dangerous indeed: people are not always sure about the possibility to control the situation, and, what is worse, people are weak to recognize their disabilities and lack of knowledge. White Noise by Don DeLillo helps to realize that death is not the most terrible and unpredictable event to be afraid of, and The Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold proves that human disrespect to nature and its gifts may be more dangerous for people. Due to their self-confidence and disabilities to define their own mistakes in time, people become the victims of their own achievements and creations. And sometimes it is better to think whether death is really so terrible or it is a gift given by nature to save people from themselves. Works Cited DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin Group, 1986.Advertising Looking for essay on american literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More DeLillo, Don and DePierto, Thomas. Conversations with Don DeLillo. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. Print. Leopard, Aldo. â€Å"The Land Ethic.† Open Questions: Readings for Critical Thinking and Writing. Ed. Chris Anderson and Lex Runciman. Boston:    Bedford/St. Martain, 2005: 531-546. Print. This essay on Exploration of Ethics and the Environment was written and submitted by user Arthur Figueroa to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

buy custom Hamlet as a Tragic Hero essay

buy custom Hamlet as a Tragic Hero essay Shakespeare presents Hamlet as a tragic hero. He has smart traits to qualify to be a hero. For example, this character is daring and brave. This is portrayed by the fact that he takes a high risk by going to England. In case his plan failed, this character would be executed in England. Hamlet also comes out as a loyal person in that he remains loyal to his father. He gets angry because of his fathers death and, thus he remains angry at his mother and Claudius for killing his father. Hamlet also comes out as an intelligent person when he pretends to be insane to be able to gather the necessary information regarding Claudius. He, however, had a flaw since he could not move on whenever he wanted. Hamlet continued attending school even as an adult for failure to move on with life. It also took him a long time to stop grieving his fathers death simply because he could not move past that. Finally, when he managed to stop grieving, Hamlet could not kill Claudius. He continued to pretend that he was mad even after confirming that Claudius caused his fathers death. Hamlet could not accomplish many things. He did not marry Ophelia even after dating her for a long time. The audience pities Hamlet for his parents death, and the fact that he loved his parents such that he became hurt by the changes that took place. Hamlets failure to move over one thing led to his death. He is killed using a poisoned sword. He had several opportunities to deal with Claudius but he made a decision being a tragic hero. The tragedy of Hamlet is an enigma. At one time, Hamlet should kill the king, but the play portrays him as a failure since he is unable to kill him. Some people argue that Hamlet failsto revenge because his inner feelings do not permit him. He seems to be weak willed. It could also be that the task placed on his shoulders was heavy for him. Other critics argue that Shakespeare wanted to show tragedy of a person who is weak willed, and at the same time poorly equipped. Other critics argue that Hamlet fails to kill the king because of the obstacles he comes across as he tries to accomplish his goal. Opposition from the king and his people makes proves difficult to kill the king at once. These critics believe that Hamlets aim was not to kill the king, but to chastise him and expose him for his guilt. Two things happen at the end of the tragedy. Hamlet kills the king alongside four other victims. The audience gets surprised since they did not expect that to happen. Reasons behind the killing of the killing are so obvious such that the audience has forgotten the initial reason for revenge. People do not hear the death of Hamlets father in the end of the play. The king gets killed as a result of different reasons from vengeance. The tragedy, therefore, reaches its catastrophe. The kings death, however, is overshadowed by several immediate causes and several other deaths. These killings are different from other killings that had occurred, previously, in the tragedy. Most of the previous deaths happened but was not noticed. The queen also dies, and people do not seem to notice. We only see Hamlet biding him farewell (Shakespeare 58). Hamlets death also gets overshadowed and blurred. After his death, he is no longer remembered. The tragedy can be explained by two formulas. First, we shall use the formula of the story where Hamlet avenges his fathers death by killing the king. According to tthe formula of the plot, Hamlet does not kill the king for that reason but for different reasons other than vengeance. This contradiction is part of the play by Shakespeare who intended to express himself by teasing the audiences emotions. The tragedy fulfills its task set from the beginning, but it keeps on deviating. The audience realizes later that it came from a very different direction. The reasons that prevented Hamlet from killing the king, led to the death of the king. The catastrophe gets to a point of contradiction when the play is interrupted by irrational events. However, the mystery and obscurity come from the author. Conclusion In conclusion, the plays contradiction revolves around the story, plot, and the dramatis. These three factors develop differently. Hamlet makes feelings of the audience move to two levels. First, one can see the goal of the tragedy and secondly the digressions arise. After the kings death, the death of Hamlet, the protagonist, attracts people immediately. This gives the spectator understand the contradictions and conflicts that existed throughout the play. Different people give different reasons for Hamlets delay or failure to act. Some say that the task given to him was tough for him to tackle. Others believe that that Hamlet was a coward with some other critics arguing that Hamlet was an imaginary person since he had long died even before the start of the play. However, we have found out that it was the authors tactic to bring out the message intended to give his audience. He, however, manages to kill the King at the end of the play, though he appears to have killed him for differe nt reasons rather than vengeance for his fathers death. Buy custom Hamlet as a Tragic Hero essay