“You and the Atomic Bomb” -George Orwell

“If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a ‘peace that is no peace’.”

Orwell’s piece is somewhat ironic.  He talks a lot about other countries, like Russia, obtaining the secret to creating the Atomic Bomb, and how devastating that could be for the rest of man-kind, but does not even hint at the fact that just two months prior, the USA dropped two atomic bombs on innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  This quote fails to mention that dropping the atom bomb could cause thousands, if not millions, of casualties because the effects of radiation would go on for generations.  It is true that dropping the bombs did spark the beginning of the end of World War II, but it also sparked the beginning of the Cold War.

Personally, I think that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was unnecessary.   We easily could have dropped regular bombs on different parts of Japan and have gotten the same message across.  The radiation emitted from the two bombs effected generations long after the war itself ended.  It is like the Treaty of Versailles after World War I; the conditions in the treaty would have effected Germany for generations after the war.  I am not saying that I am siding with Japan, but they had the dignity to attack a military base; we attacked innocent people.  Yes, it put the United States in “first place” when it comes to weaponry, but at what cost?  I wish they had come up with a different solution because in the long run, the cons definitely outweighed the pros.

“The Search For Marvin Gardens” -John McPhee

“Mr. Darrow, please, where is Marvin Gardens?”

John McPhee’s essay about Monopoly was an interesting one, to say the least.  I was trying to figure out what his point was throughout the entire essay.  It never occurred to me that this was simply a story; there is no point or message.

McPhee goes back and forth between his game and him searching for the streets that either him or his opponent land on.  Reading about him going back and forth between the game and his search reminds me of A Prayer for Owen Meany.  John Irving was constantly switching back and forth between his childhood and his “present” life.  In Irving’s book, it was hard to keep track of which year he was writing in, but his separations were not as clear as McPhee’s.

McPhee’s search for Marvin Gardens could symbolize his search for a victory.  He not only cannot land on the space in the game, but he cannot find the place in real life. If he was able to buy Marvin Gardens, he would have won.

“On Memory” -Jerome K. Jerome

“A new life begins for us with every second. Let us go forward joyously to meet it. We must press on whether we will or no, and we shall walk better with our eyes before us than with them ever cast behind.”

Reading this quote, it seems like it could be on one of those inspirational pictures that are al over the internet.  Jerome is saying here that we must not focus on things of the past, but that we should let go and move forward.  Jerome’s essay as a whole was very inspirational because it reinforced the saying that you should live in the now instead of focusing on things in the past.

I used to struggle with moving on and letting go of the past.  It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I started living for each day and I stopped dwelling on the past.  It is at this point in my life that I started becoming much happier because I stopped focusing on the little things in life.  When something went wrong, I said to my self, “There is nothing you can do about it now, so just let it go.”.

“Holy Water” – Joan Didion

“Some of us who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a reverence others might find excessive.”

There are so many people in this world that take advantage of water, me being one of those.  I am aware of the impending danger that we will one day no longer have access to water, yet I still do not conserve well.  I keep telling myself that I will treat the environment better by conserving water better, but it only lasts about a week.  I have never really had to worry about losing water.  The only time I can think of when I did not have water was after Superstorm Sandy.  For the first day or two after Sandy hit, my family decided to see if we could live in our house, despite having no power, water, or heat.  When it became apparent that we were not getting our power back, we packed up and temporarily moved out.  We first stayed in a hotel because school wasn’t an issue; half of the power lines on the street that my school was on had fallen onto the street.   About a week and a half later, the schools re-opened, but I was still out of power in my house, so I ended up staying with friends.  Luckily, it only took 2 and a half weeks until I was able to move back into my house.  During that time period, there was nothing that I valued more than water and heat.

Didion explains the process of getting water and where it comes from in her essay, and I think that was the most surprising to me.  During the immediate aftermath of Sandy, I was furious with the power companies and water companies for not working harder to try to give us back electricity.  I did not realize that so much work went into getting us that water.

“The Search for Adam and Eve” -John Tierney

“The scientists don’t claim to have found the first woman, merely a common ancestor — possibly one from the time when modern humans arose. What’s startling about this Eve is that she lived 200,000 years ago. This date not only upsets fundamentalists (the Bible’s Eve was calculated to have lived 5,992 years ago), it challenges many evolutionists’ conviction that the human family tree began much earlier.”

This conclusion, that Eve lived 200,000 years ago, sparks the modern debate about where we (humans) came from. Before the world was so technologically advanced, the debate was between Christians and evolutionists. Christians believed that our origin is what is stated in the bible, while evolutionists relied on science and Charles Darwin’s theory for our origin.  Christians believed that one day, Adam was created from dust and that Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs.  Evolutionists believed that Adam and Eve evolved from chimpanzees and from there started the Homo sapiens race.

With access to more technology, scientists have proof of evolution because fossils of skulls of creatures that are not chimpanzees, but not quite humans have been discovered.  That discovery pretty much pushed the Christians belief away and made room for a new debate.  The new debate, that still is going on today, is between geneticists and anthropologists.  Its the question of when Homo sapiens first appeared.  Anthropologists think that they first appeared about a million years ago, while geneticists think they first appeared about 200,000 years ago.  However, as time goes on and more evidence is discovered, whether its bones or a new genetic discovery, the date of the origin seems to be increasing.  Who knows? Maybe with the continued search for answers, scientists will eventually come up with a definitive answer as to where we came from.  Or, maybe, just as the Christian theory was dismissed, the theory of evolution will be dismissed because someone found evidence of another theory as to where we came from.

“Not-Knowing” -Donald Barthelme

“The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.”

“Not-knowing” in Barthelme’s essay is the unknown, or the future. He is right in that without the willingness to dive into something that is unknown, mankind and civilization would not evolve. The iPhone would not have been invented if someone hadn’t been brave enough to dive into something they know nothing about. The unknown allows us to be able to find these new inventions; the same goes with art. In order for art to be created, someone has to have a mind, big enough to be able to explore new ideas, but small enough to not let the imagination run wild. That is the great thing about art though; you never know what is coming next.

Art is all around us. Everything we see, feel, touch, is art. Art is even in things that we know nothing about. That’s the beauty of art; someone must have created it. As seekers of the not-knowing, it is our job to make the unknown, known.

“A Rose of Emily” -William Faulkner

“‘I want some poison,’ she said to the druggist.”

After this quote, the townspeople seemed to think that Emily was going to use the poison on herself, instead of its intended target rats.  I, however, was a little skeptical of this.  Her great aunt went insane, she was abandoned by the first man she was supposed to marry, and now this other man comes along and rumors are spreading that they will get married; to me, it just did not make sense that Emily would kill herself, but maybe she would try for someone else.

This story as a whole as very creepy.  At the end when Faulkner says that they found a long strand of gray hair next to Homer’s body, I immediately got goosebumps.  I do not know what it was about the death that freaked me out so much.  What I do know is that it makes perfect sense that Emily killed Homer.  She was alone and depressed, and the first man she was supposed to marry abandoned her, so to ensure that she would not be abandoned again, she killed him and kept his body for herself.  This just proves that Emily is intact insane, and it proves my original hypothesis that she would use the poison to try to kill someone else.

“Young Goodman Brown” -Nathaniel Hawthorne

‘”My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment.  “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name.  Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.”‘

This essay was interesting to read, but challenging to comprehend because it is so religious based.  In Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown was maddened at the thought of his wonderful wife being swept away by the devil.  It is at that moment that he says this quote.  He no longer has desire to do or be good and finally gives in to the darkness.  When I read this, I immediately connected Faith to your religious faith.  When you lose your faith, you leave yourself open for the devil.  When you give in to the devil, everything and nothing you do is a sin because you do bad things, but you do not believe in sinning.  Walking with the devil leaves no room for good so it is almost impossible to actually leave him behind; Brown actually believes that the world is the devil’s “playground”.

“A Graveyard” – Marianne Moore

“Man, looking into the sea—

taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—

it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing

but you cannot stand in the middle of this:

the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.”

After reading these first few lines, I already could see it in my mind.  I could see the sea being violated and disturbed.  When one disturbs the sea, they could easily be killing some marine life, or disturbing the grave in which the marine life lives.  When the men lower the nets, they are disturbing the sea, which is compared to disturbing a grave; not only are you disturbing a grave, you are disturbing the living, creating a grave for them.

I have always been very conscious of the environment, so reading this poem really hit home.  Saying “the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave” is sad because Moore is saying that the sea has been “dug up” so many times that there is nothing left.  Moore makes an excellent point, that even though the sea is not fully emptied, if we keep up the removal of the marine life, eventually there really will be nothing left; it will be an empty grave.

“Notes of a Native Son” -James Baldwin

“I saw nothing very clearly but I did see this: that my life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart.”

After reading just the first paragraph, I knew that this was going to be an intense story, but to my surprise, the end left a smile on my face.  He realized that he would not get anywhere with hatred and despise.  I was shocked and quite sad when I read this quote.  I cannot imagine having that much hate in my heart, nor would I ever care to.  For Baldwin to be driven to kill, he must have gone through hell.

At the start of each chapter, Baldwin goes back to his father’s funeral, so, even though he claims to have despised his father, we can tell that his father’s death took a deep toll on him; he even compared himself to his father at one point.  At the end, he even said that he wished his father was there to help him for the future.  The story, as a whole, went in multiple different directions; at first it was sad, then it was violent, but the ending was “happy”.