Honors American Literature (B)

The first chapter of the novel, The Thing They Carry by Tim O’Brien, describes some of the intangible things that the characters carry. This is something that I can relate to, and so everyone does. The characters in the novel carry their fears, honor, love, emotions, brotherhood, and so more. They carry more than one thing. I do also myself; however, I will only mention one of the things I carry, my culture. It is the most significant thing that identifies me. As a Mexican, I am proud of my culture, and it is something that I will always protect. I was born Mexican and will stay as Mexican.

There are a lot of problems in my country, Mexico does not have the best economy and security. However, it is a country rich in culture, and I am a part of it. Mexico is a beautiful country and that is something I’m proud of. As a proud Mexican, I love to party, make noise, and be friends with everyone. I like to make everyone have a good time. I come from a culture where everyone is friendly with anybody. For example, the waiters are really attentive. When you are ordering your food, they start to have a conversation even when you did not ask for it. They ask you politely what you want, never giving you a distressed face. Even people on the streets are fun in Mexico. I assure you that if you start dancing randomly in the street there will be people joining you. Even in our way of talking, we are used to saying “ito” at the end of most words. “Ito” is a diminutive suffix. It can be used to show affection, or soften the meaning of the actual word. For example, instead of saying “You want a tequila?” it is said, “You want a tequilita?”. It’s like if you say it that way it’s going to be something simple, and suddenly they bring you a jar full of tequila. The “ito” is a good way to soften anything. You are saying something horrible but you soften the punch with a glove, the glove being the suffix. It makes you seem more friendly, and everyone will respond to you nicely if you ask it politely. If you are lost and you are looking for directions as Mexicans we will do anything to help you. It is part of our culture. The way we were raised. Raised with delicious food and music.

Something I am proud of is the delicious food that Mexico has. Something that would put a smile on any Mexican is when tourists said that they enjoyed the food and that they had a great time. Our food is extensive. There are tons of different dishes in Mexico. Depending on what you are a different dish there would be. However, everything is delicious. It is something that I always miss when I’m studying here, and it is something I would miss if I move out to another country. Mexico has not only delicious food, we have traditional music, too.

The music is unique. Not too many outsiders like Mariachi, banda, and songs that are traditionally from Mexico. I even know Mexicans that it is not their favorite music genre, like my sister for example. However, there is something that almost everyone agrees with, it makes you want to move the body. Most Mexicans like to dance. It is something that is reflected in parties. Everyone is dancing with everyone. We like to shake our bodies, especially me. It is part of our culture, our dances and music. We have traditional dances like “Jarabe tapatío”, which is considered the national dance from Mexico; therefore, the most popular dance. “La Danza de los Viejitos”, “El huapango”, among other traditional dances originated in my country. Our culture is extensive and that is what I love from Mexico. In the novel of The Thing They Carry the characters were shaped on what they carried. My culture is what has shaped me. I’m proud of my Mexican cultural side. I love how friendly Mexican people are, the language, the music, the food, and dances. This intangible aspect of me would never change even if years pass. Mexico is my birth country and even though there are lots of things that I hate about it I love my country.

“‘They’re a rotten crowd’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together,’” (Fitzgerald 154). This is one of the last things that Nick says to Gatsby after he was murdered. Saying that all his friends are corrupt and that Gatsby is more valuable than even all of them together. Fitzgerald introduces the readers to Tom, Daisy, and Jordan in his book The Great Gatsby. The book is written from Nick’s perspective. Nick writes every aspect of every character, he is the side character, while Gatsby is the main character. Nick shows that every character is not what they seem. Gatsby is worth more than them. Gatsby maybe be corrupt but he is better than everybody else. Nick is right when he gave his last compliment to Gatsby. The crowd may be rotten as Gatsby, but he is worth more than everyone put together. 

Tom is the husband of Daisy. He is Gatsby’s love rival. He is a narcissistic guy who thinks that he is better than everyone else because of his old money. He is a rich guy who did nothing to accumulate all his wealth, he only was born lucky and inherited all his wealth. He was arrogant and racist: “Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” (Fitzgerald 14). Tom is speaking about a book that uses “science” to justify racist acts to other races other than the white one. At that time there were highly-regarded scientists who measures the sizes of different races’ skulls. they determine that the biggest skull were the white ones; therefore, they were the superiors. Tom believed in that research. He was racist and sexist. He looked at women as objects. He didn’t care about having affairs and that his wife knew about it: “Tom’s got some women in New York,” (Fitzgerald 15). This is what Jordan tells Nick. Tom did nothing to hide the fact that he was having an affair with other women. Everyone knew that Tom was unfaithful, even Daisy. He did not mind hitting women if they were bothering him. He even broke the nose of her mistress when she was saying the name Daisy. Tom did not care about his lover, he saw her as an object that he could easily get rid of. He did not even care about Daisy. Never showing a piece of love to his wife. Tom had a disgusting personality. He was an arrogant man that was thought to be superior to everyone else. He discriminated against people that had New Money. He did not love his wife and used her as an object as well as other women. However, Daisy was not that innocent either, she was corrupted by her husband’s money.

Daisy was similar to Tom in one thing, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,” (Fitzgerald 104). Daisy did not mind using people. She used Gatsby to make jealous Tom and take her revenge by having an affair with another man as he did with other women. She used to love Gatsby; however, she chose Tom over him because of his wealth. She did not love Tom but she kept preferring him because of his wealth. Daisy got corrupted by money: “her voice is full of money,” (Fitzgerald 83). Even Gatsby recognized that Daisy was not that pure girl that he used to be. She only cared about money. When she had the opportunity to have love over money, she chose the money. Destroying Gatsby’s life and leading him to be murdered. Gatsby protected Daisy when she killed Myrtle Wilson in a car accident. He knew that her husband, George will take measures to have his revenge. Nick even suggested Gatsby leave for some weeks until everything settles down, but he refused to leave because he wanted to protect Daisy. Gatsby was murdered by George. He protected the love of his life sacrificing himself. However, when it was the funeral of Gatsby, Daisy was not present. She refused to go, she did not even care that Gatsby sacrifices himself to save her. Daisy only cared for money. She forgives Tom of all his affairs. She decided to leave Gatsby. Only concerning about money; however, Jordan is not innocent either. 

Jordan Baker “instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to be at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body, ” (Fitzgerald 30). She would lie and cheat when the favors are not on her side. She had a superiority complex. She took advantage of her beauty and fame, using it to satisfy her own desires and soothe her insecurities. She was a big lier. She lies to people in order to maintain an advantage over others. She wanted to be superior that is why she avoided “clever, shrewd men” so that she could remain superior. She is as rotten as everybody else.

Gatsby is worth than all this rotten crowd. Tom was narcissist, racist, and sexist. He did not care for his wife and he had multiple affairs with women, never doing anything so that the rumors would come to the ears of Daisy. Daisy was corrupted by money, she used Gatsby to have her revenge, and preferred money over love. Jordan has a superiority complex. She wants to remain on top of everyone else, constantly avoiding on-purpose smart men who could overshadow her. Gatsby had shady businesses, and he was perfect, no one is. However, he was so much better than them. Nick was right when he said that Gatsby is worth more than they put together. Everyone was corrupted in a way, but Gatsby was a nice guy who sacrificed himself for the love of his life.

Tim O’Brien emphasizes the objects that every character carries in the novel: The Things They Carried. The items they carry are intended to illustrate aspects of their personality. However, in the course of the novel, the soldiers are not only carrying physical objects, but also abstract ones. The soldiers carry their emotions, their honor, their dead comrades, guilt, shame, and a lot of other emotions. Rat Kiley is the medic of the Alpha Company, it is written that he was carrying comic books, but also the weight of the deaths of all of the Alpha Company. Norman Bowker carried a diary, but also the guilt of the death of Kiowa. Dave Jensen carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and soap, and the weight of Lee Strunk’s life. Everyone has something that they are carrying. Some are heavier than others, but everyone tries to move and continue with all the weight. Some move forward by escaping from their reality by using illegal substances, and others can’t progress and take their own life.

Everyone in the Alpha Company relies on Rat to save their backs. He saved a lot of lives in Vietnam, but also he felt responsible for the deaths of his platoon. As the medic, he was in charge of the health of his platoon, but sometimes he could not save his comrades. He saw too much death, and the mission they had did not help at all. They had to walk in the night to be undetected by the enemy. The platoon called it “the night life”. They tried to sleep during the day and walk in the darkness of the night. There was only darkness surrounding Rat and his thoughts. He started to visualize his thoughts which later would become hallucinations. His hallucinations consumed him, picturing things like, “Sometimes he’d stare at guys who were still okay, the alive guys and he’d start to picture how they’d look dead” (O’Brien 211). Rat snapped, he’s seen so much death in the war and now, in the darkness, he can’t escape from his thoughts. The darkness leads him to the point of madness. He was alone with his thoughts, and when he couldn’t see another soldier he pictured himself dead. Even when he has seen all this death as a medic, he can not understand how people die and how quick death is, “how crazy it was that people who were so incredibly alive they’d look dead” (O’Brien 212). People around him died instantly and without a warning. How can someone that was just breathing be seen so lifeless? Rat couldn’t fit in his mind how a living thing could easily be his life stolen. This led to madness; he wanted to escape. He shot his foot to escape Vietnam. No one blames him for doing it. The whole company sympathized with him and understood what he was going through. They felt pity for him, and that how such a great guy would descend to madness. The intangible weight of his thoughts becomes too much for him. He felt guilty about the deaths of his comrades just as Norman Bowker with the death of Kiowa. 

Bowker felt culpable for Kiowa’s death. He returns from Vietnam tortured with guilt. He hides this guilt under the regret that he didn’t win the Silver Star. He “remembered how he had taken hold of Kiowa’s boot and pulled hard, but how the smell was simply too much, and how he’d nacked off and in that way had lost the Silver Star” (O’Brien 146).  He tried to speak about what he felt after the war but he couldn’t. He pictured himself having a conversation with his father about what happened in Vietnam, but it was only his own rational side. He was lonely. He felt he did not belong anywhere. He asks O’Brien to write a story about “a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any damn place to go and doesn’t know how he gets to get there anyway. This guy wants to talk about it, but he can’t,” (O’Brien 151). Bowker asks O’Brien to write about how he felt because he couldn’t put it in his own words. His guilt is so big that he can not express his emotions. He could not fit in with society. It was like a time bomb. Every day that passed, he would be more consumed with guilt until the bomb exploded and he hanged himself. He wanted to run away, get rid of the blame, but the guilt already consumed him too much to the point he took his life so that he could not feel culpability anymore. The immense weight of guilt that he carried was too intense. He just wanted to get rid of the weight not knowing how. The solution for him was his life. He felt culpable for his friend just like Dave Jensen. 

Dave Jensen carried the responsibility of his friend’s life. He became friends with Lee Strunk after Strunk broke his nose because he stole his jackknife. Strunk was consumed by his thoughts with the idea of Jensen taking his revenge. He snapped and broke his own nose to be equal to Jensen. Jensen thought he was crazy and became good friends with Strunk. They made a “pact that if one of them should ever get totally fucked up —a wheelchair wound—the other gu would automatically find a way to end it,” (O’Brien 62). They signed it and brought people to be witnesses of their pact. Months later Strunk stepped on a rigged mortar round, taking out his right leg. He was panicking, he did not want to die, and when Jensen came to see him, Strunk repeatedly said to Jensen to not kill him, don’t kill him. Jensen said he won’t, and he didn’t do it. Later he “heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight,” (O’Brien 63). Strunk was facing death and he preferred living disabled rather than dying. His need to live overcomes the pact he did with Jensen, and when Jensen hears the news of Strunk’s death he is relieved. Relieved that he has no obligation to kill him anymore. The weight he felt of having the responsibility of his friend’s life vanished.

All the characters had something they carried. Rat was carrying all the deaths he’d witnessed, Bowker was carrying the guilt of Kiowa’s death, and Jensen the responsibility of killing Strunk. Everyone in the Alpha Company was carrying their emotions and the deaths of their comrades. War is something that will drive anyone mad. Taking the life of people and witnessing a lot of death is horrible. The moral weight that every soldier that kills someone in cold blood is something that they will carry for the rest of their lives. Every soldier will carry their remorse, emotions,  and their own weight to the graves. 

Rocky was my dog for 12 long years. He had fur with brown spots. His brown spots in his belly reassemble Africa. He was a friendly dog. His favorite activity was walking in the morning. He always got piped up when we grabbed the leash. He was sometimes amorous, but he showed his love more towards me and my mom. My dad used to call him cat-dog because normally dogs when you enter the house, they will run towards you to welcome you. Rocky in another hand only barked at you and when you wanted to pet him, he would pass through you; however, the only exception was me and my mom, he used to jump to my legs to welcome me. Rocky when he wanted to be a pet he would always sit in front of you and stare at you with puppy eyes. Rocky did not obey my mom, he would only obey me and my dad. 

Rocky died as a warrior. He never gave up, he grasped his life in every moment. One day my family and I were skiing and we received a call from my nannies that Rocky escaped from the house, but something was weird because Rocky always returns home eventually. My mom wrote a message to the neighbors that Rocky escaped and that they had not found it, and if they found the dog she asked if they could return him. A neighbor sent a message that she heard a dog barking in pain for hours in an abandoned house. The police of the residence went to check and saw Rocky in a pool trying to get out. His paws were bleeding because he tried to go out but he couldn’t. He never gave up and he did not drown, even though he detested water, he was afraid of it. We never comprehend how he got in the pool in the first place when he would never think about being near water. He never gave up on living in his lasts moments. His heart stopped beating and we thought he was finally gone, but suddenly he revived. He did not want his life to end, but he was suffering and in pain so we had to put him to sleep. However, I will always remember as my strong-headed dog. 

He had a good life. He was loved too much. He was the spoiled one of the house. I will never forget about him. We had good times and he was always next to me. He was a lovely dog and even though he was not perfect I loved him so much. He is always missed in my house. It feels sad when I return to my house and I do not hear his barks. Or when we are eating and my food falls to the ground and Rocky is not there to eat it, or when I go downstairs for a really late night snack and I open the fridge and Rocky would be staring at me, begging me with his eyes to give him food. There are a lot of things that will be missed by him, but I will keep in my heart all the good moments I had with him. 

It all started when a rebellious kid kept misbehaving in his seventh-grade year of school. He was a problematic student in his school. He always just kept getting in trouble. Alex was passing through his teenage period. Making a hell of class time with his pranks to his friends, his disinterested attitude towards the class. Throwing glues on the ceiling, staying stuck for months; talking loudly in class; constantly beginning a war of papers in the middle of a class. He once grabbed a dead bird and put it inside of the lunch box for a friend to open it in the classroom for later, put it inside a locker, and left it there all weekend. After that, the classroom smelled horrible so they had to change to another classroom. He was a mess, and if someone told him to do something, he would do it without thinking twice. 

He dared to do a bunch of antics and if he made up his mind that he would do it, there was no going back. Even sometimes he did not even dare to do something and he would do it anyway. One time his friends challenged him to leave the classroom in the middle of a class without the teacher noticing. He succeeded and even joined the other class that was doing P-fit. The school that he was in divided high school and middle school with two big buildings that are 4 floors tall. He decided to climb to the roof of the middle school building and jump to the high school building. He succeeded, but he made something so reckless that he could have died. He was caught and he went to detention, he was suspended for that. Another day he was punished because of misbehavior in class, and he was locked in recess time in the office of the principal. He knew that the principal was not returning to his office until recess was over. His office was located on the second floor of the building. So he opened the window that faced the back of the building, jumped over a wall, and climbed his way down to recess. When recess ended he climbed up again to the Principal office waiting for him to come over. The principal did not notice what happened, but what Alex did not know is that the surveillance cameras caught him and he got in big trouble. He Got suspended thanks to that. He went through lots of detentions, and suspensions in his school year. He never thought twice when he was going to do something, and he was violent. 

Alex got into a lot of fights because of how violent he was. Getting in trouble every time he fought. One day he got in a fight with one kid from the eighth grade because the eighth-grader grabbed the ball of basketball which  Alex was playing with his friends and kicked the ball out of the school. He got mad and pushed the kid.  The eighth-grader responded with a punch. Alex got furious and knocked him with one punch. Fortunately for Alex, the teachers were not around, the friends of the knocked-out kid picked him up, and Alex did not get in trouble. It was not the first time that he got into a fight, he got into four more in his life. He was a violent kid. His parents grounded him a bunch of times, to the point that in his seventh grade all of his electronic devices were prohibited for him for one year. 

Alex’s parents did not know what to do with him, no matter how many times he was grounded. It appeared that he never learned. One day her mother picked him up from school after he got detained, both of them entered the car, Alex was scared he thought that he was going to get yelled at, and get more grounded. He was expecting a mad face from her mother, but in his surprise when he looked at her mother he could only find disappointment in her face. She was just giving a sad stare at Alex. The silence invaded the car, Alex started to feel bad, and Alex’s mother started crying in front of him. Saying out loud, “What did I do wrong to educate you like this?” He was shocked. He started thinking if he wants to continue managing his life as he does. Is it really worth it? The look and the weeping of her mother hurt more than any punishment. It made him think what would be of his life if he continued like that. He felt devastated. How could a son make her mother cry? His parents expect him for the best, and he continues to disappoint them. He looked at himself in the car’s mirrors. Is this who I want to be? A failure of a son that just kept letting down his parents to the point that her mother shared tears of disappointment. He cleared his mind and promised to himself to never upset his parents again. If his mother will cry again because of him, the tears would be of happiness not sadness. He changed his way of living. Now he wants to make his parents proud. Obviously sometimes he disappoints them, but he tries to find a way of fixing it. Now he thinks twice before he acts and he always looks to do goods not deeds. Now he tries to become the best of himself everyday.

In the novel Maggie: A Girl From the Street, Crane introduces two characters that came from the same background, both of them are Irish immigrants and both became prostitutes. Maggie is our protagonist, an innocent girl that has not experienced the rubbish of the world. Nellie is a high-class prostitute that is introduced in one chapter of the novel, chapter XIV to be exactly, and she appears to be an antagonist that took Pete from Maggie, leading Maggie to her downfall. They are both “cut from the same cloth.” However, at the same time, they are completely different. Maggie looks at the world with innocent eyes, she has not come up with the horrors of life. She has yet to experience the darker essence of humanity. While Nellie had already mastered beforehand. Making her capable of surviving even in the darker sides of humankind. She does not hesitate to use others to accomplish her goals. She is a capable independent survivor; while Maggie easily gets blinded by love and depends on others for her survival leading her to her downfall, and finally her death.

Maggie was pure at the beginning of the novel. She has not been corrupted. Pete is the responsible for leading her to a darker path. She is so innocent and blinded by love that she does not realize Pete’s actions. Maggie calls Pete a gentleman when Pete impolitely talks with the waiter, “He displayed the consideration of a cultured gentleman who knows what was due. ‘Say what deh hell? Bring deh lady a big glass! What deh hell use is dat pony?’” (Crane 24). Pete, ill-mannered, talks to the waiter ordering a drink for Maggie, and Maggie blindfolded just sees him as a cavalier. Maggie can not see the truth because she is living in her pink fantasy. She is dumb enough to fall for the poor tricks of Pete to make her fall in love with him, “‘I wonner if I’ve been played fer a duffer.”’ (Crane 26). Pete plays dumb for the intentions of making Maggie fall for him, and he succeeds; however, he only wants Maggie for her body. Pete does not love Maggie, he only wants to have a sexual relationship with her, and poor Maggie steps on his trap. On the contrary, Nellie is different and she does not fall for the traps of Pete or other men, she makes the traps and the men fall for it.

Nellie lives on her own. She works as a prostitute, seduces men, uses them, and when they are no longer useful to her, she dumps them into the trash. With that strategy, she gains tons of money. She earns her living by using others to benefit her own survival. Nellie has a lot of riches and Maggie notices that, She perceived that her black dress fitted her to perfection. Her linen collar and cuffs were spotless. Tan gloves were stretched over her well-shaped hands. A hat of a prevailing fashion perched jauntily upon her dark hair. She wore no jewelry and was painted with no apparent pain. She looked clear-eyed through the stares of the men” (Crane 65). Maggie is envious of Nellie’s appearance and the way Pete looks at her. Nellie knows how to get the attention of Pete. Something that Maggie repeatedly tries but she is unsuccessful. Nellie puts an eye on Pete. The men with whom she was no longer useful to her. So she decided to make a move to Pete. This is how she survives. She takes from others to benefit herself. She uses Pete so that he wastes all his money on her, and she takes the money of Pete. She doesn’t love Pete or any other men that she is with. She just uses them for her own survival. Nellie is a strong and independent woman, who would not think twice to bring someone to ruin if that will make her achieve her goals. Something that Maggie is not capable of, she always depends on someone to survive. 

Maggie had to rely on others to survive. She first depends on her mother and brother. Then she had to depend on Pete, but when she did not have someone to rely only on herself. It was too late. When she came up with the sense that she had to create a life for herself, her days were counting. It was too late for her. In desperation, she became a prostitute. Although she was not at the level of Nellie. Nellie came up with that realization long before Maggie. Nellie gained experience to become self-reliable and mastered the art of manipulation. Maggie was a beginner. She was just starting to gain experience on how to seduce men, and how to live by herself. She did everything she could to survive; however, it was too late for her. As Maggie finds her way down a gloomy ally with a strange man. She made her way in the darkness. “At their feet, the river appeared a deathly black hue,” (Crane 82). Maggie’s story came to an end. She died as no one. She saw a glimpse of darkness in her last moment. Lonely Maggie died. It was a solitary last moment. She never felt loved by nobody. No by her brother. No by Pete. Not even by her mother. She died without reciprocating love.

Both women with the same background, only one survived, the other one had a lonely death. Maggie with her innocence follows the men that lead her to her downfall. Nellie stands up as a survivor, only relying on herself. It was too late for Maggie to become self-reliable, dying lonely, without ever feeling true love, she died as another nameless prostitute. Both cut from the same cloth, but ended completely differently, which shows how cruel the world can be. Crane wrote this realistic piece of writing with a bitter ending. Trying to demonstrate that life does not always have a happy ending.

Egoism is an ethical theory that treats self-interest as the foundation of morality. Humans have been egoistic since when we could consider ourselves humans. The Average citizen in Norway for two-hundred and fifty years might have wanted some really good shoes. A hundred-fifty years ago, maybe a bicycle. Eighty years ago, a car. Thirty years ago, cheap air travel, and so on. Once we get what we want, we don’t stop; we see how we can improve things even more, and how to make things even better. Egoism is shaped in humans in different ways, in war, in selfishness, and in survival. Humans aim to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs. We act altruistically because we can expect that the people we help go on to help others, or you can gain some benefit from helping. In the end you help others because it makes you feel good. You did something that can help others, making you feel a good feeling of self-accomplishment, and that is an egoistic feeling in the end. When self-interest succeeds in wrecking the collective interest, for example, if there are suddenly limited resources, it becomes easy to start viewing our neighbors as competitors. As long as there is self-interest, there would be conflict. However, self-interest can lead to cooperation. The power of cooperation to make friends of former enemies is one of the most hopeful things that a psychologist can think of.

War is an egoistic act made by humans. Wars can start for various reasons, but almost always because others are gaining a better advantage than others. The only way to get better off is if someone else gets worse off. If you take a bigger piece of the pie, someone else’s gets smaller. If you want more food, or resources, then conquering, plundering, and stealing are great strategies. Your neighbor’s loss is your gain. This was the state of things for thousands of years. Societies invaded each other to gain more resources. An example of a current war is the invasion of Ukraine. Putin is making a really egoistic act of using others’ lives to get what he wants, invading Ukraine. He is not sacrificing himself for his country, he is involving the whole country for his own self-interest. In the book The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien, shows his disgust of this type of leaders or people, “there should be a global law that states: People who are in favor of war should put their own families in the front line” (O’Brien 37). O’Brien expresses his disgust of the leaders that use others to obtain something that will benefit themselves. Leaders showing a lack of sympathy over their followers. They did not care if they died. They were just pawns that they could get rid if they wanted. The leaders lack sympathy to their followers. Wars begin because of egoism. WWI and WWII started because Germany did a selfish act to invade other countries because they wanted their resources. Then the other countries did not like that Germany was gaining too much power, and decided to declare war to them. Civil War started because the South felt they were different from the North, and egotistically wanted to be independent from them. The North did not want them to become independent because they would be affected greatly economically. Wars always start because of the self-interest of their citizens or leaders. Never because they want to help others. The idea of taking another life is selfish enough. To look for yourself in a state of survival is egoistic too.

In the novel The Road McCarthy presented us with a realistic idea of what could happen in a post apocalyptic world, where there are no animals and plants left, only humans. Humans without any food left resorted to cannibalism, “They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won’t face it” (McCarthy 56). The wife of the protagonist told him this before she suicide. She preferred to end her suffering rather than keep living. Leaving the man and her son behind. Humanity resorted to cannibalism because of their own survival. In this post-apocalyptic world there are no laws, humans are free to do whatever they want. It shows the lowest of humanity. A realistic idea of what could happen because people look at themselves if they are in a good position to help others and it will not affect their survival. That is what the man was worried about. He put as his first priority the survival of himself and his son. Then if it did not affect their survival then he could help others in need, but he never did. When he and his son met a man on the edge of death he did not help him. His son was mad at him, but he told him: “He’s going to die. We can’t share what we have or we’ll die too” (McCarthy 52). The man, who was going to die, had burns like if he was hit by lightning. The man knew he was going to die even if he gave him food or medical treatment. The burned man was going to die. They will have to waste their resources to try to help a dead man, risking their own survival. Humans always help others if they are in a good position to do so. If a person is not economically well, he will not help others economically. They could help others in other ways, but if they think that they are not in a good position in doing it, or it would affect them in their own survival, they are not going to do it. Egoism is not necessarily a bad thing. Egoism is a broad topic, and has a lot of examples of how you can be selfish, like in love.

When you find someone you love, you want to be with her or him for a great part of your time. You want to feel whole, and that is why people marry. They want to dedicate their time and life to that other person. They want to have their love for themselves, and do not want others to take her/him away from them. To build a family together, and get old together. This need of having that person love for himself is selfish. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby wanted Daisy’s love, even though he did not know if she wanted the same thing. Telling her, “Just tell him the truth—that you never loved him—and it is all wiped out forever” (Fitzgerald 51). Gatsby wanted Daisy for himself, but she was married to another man, even though she did not love him. However, Daisy married her husband because of economic interest. She truly loved Gatsby, but she did not correspond with his feelings because she loved her husband too. Daisy and her husband were selfish people, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,” (Fitzgerald 104). Daisy did not mind using people. She used Gatsby to make jealous Tom and take her revenge by having an affair with another man as he did with other women. She selfishly uses others to make herself feel better with her revenge. It is normal that humans do the impossible to get what they want. Humans always want more. Jealousy in a relationship is normal. Jealousy is not a bad thing. It shows that you truly love that person and that you do not want her to be with someone else. However, extreme jealousy can lead to a toxic relationship, and it is something unhealthy for the couple. Being a little egoistic is not something bad, on the contrary is something good, but being extremely egoist is bad, and no one likes an extremely selfish person.

Egoism is an ethical system in which self-interest is held to be the foundation of morality. Egoistic can be represented in different ways. For example, on war. Selfishness leads to war, and it has been like this for millions of years. People are egoistic if this involves their own survival. Humans always seek to live longer, and survive in society. Finally, Love is a selfish emotion because you want that special person, that makes you feel whole, to be with you. Egoism is a natural human emotion that makes us who we are, and people tend to interpret egoism as something bad, but it isn’t. As anything in this world, all excesses are bad and egoism is not the exception; however, to think of yourself, and worry about yourself is not a bad thing.

There was an urge to go to the bathroom. Out of my room I guided myself to the bathroom and finished my necessities. In my room I saw an email saying that today was Mountain Day, something that I had already suspected since three days ago. In my room I checked my phone, 6:45 in the morning, forty minutes left for me to go to a restorative circle in the reading room. And on time I had to arrive, if not more trouble would be waiting for me with Mr. Bee since I am responsible for the incident.
Every single one who was involved in the incident was reunited, we were seated in a circle with the maintenance of Hebron to talk about the matter of the fire extinguisher. I was thinking that I could not find my snowshoes, for a moment I thought if someone stole them as a prank, but then I remembered that I may have left it in my friend’s room because I stayed there for a while the day before.
At least I was relieved that nobody took them. In the meeting we apologized to the maintenance staff for the trouble that we caused them, and expressed regret that I did not have the guts to take responsibility, showing cowardness on my acts, and that my selfish acts provoked the accident to escalate. At the moment the meeting was done I slept another forty minutes.
By the time I wake up I realize I have been late. I was running to catch the van, I made it to the locker, but my skis were nowhere to be seen, someone took them. Instead I grabbed my snowboard and arrived at Lost Valley, and the sky the rest of the day; I needed to go to the bathroom so I left my stuff outside, when I returned, to my surprise, someone stole my helmet, I don’t have it anymore.
Now my day is ruined as I write this essay. It is not my day, and it’s not getting any better, and Ms waterman’s hug made me surpass my anger, but I am still frustrated. I am going to take a nap to get myself calmer, there is no reason to get angrier, that is going to make me mad with everybody.
Suddenly the frustration is gone, maybe the nap calmed me down, nah who am I lying to, I feel more frustrated because I dream of my stolen helmet, it feels like a joke. It is like if my brain is telling me, “you want to not be angry the whole day? Well, let’s make you dream how you got stolen so that you keep that streak.” Now my frustration has begun again, great.

One hundred years ago, the Revolution of Mexico came to an end. The Constitution of Mexico was signed and a new democratic government was formed; however, at what cost? At the cost of those who those who are considered as the “heroes of the revolution” vandalized towns, raped the women’s of those towns. At the cost of someone finally assumed the power to end betrayed and assassinated by those who trusted. At the cost of putting the economy to the ground. At the cots that we are still recovering from that bowl, that is the revolution. The cost that nothing solved.
We are having the same corrupt government that steals from the taxes that we pay for them to make a better country, and they let people live in misery. They don’t care for their own people. They give us a poor education system that we got to follow. They are only making more dumb people.
The police are extorting all of us. They are looking for more money, even though they pay what we are paying. The police treat us like criminals, but it is not our fault, we got to thank the regent.
We have to uproot the problem, and change the government of our country. To the people of bureaucracy, stop hating, insulting, and abusing the lower class, respect them, we were born in the same country. We do not need this unnecessary hate. For the lower class stop turning to crime. Even though our government and our society doesn’t let you enrich yourself, put your morals first, and hold up with that. The bureaucracy has to help the lower class and the lower class has to stop committing crime. We need to put an end to this cycle of hate and unite as a country.
The government has to share their riches right. Helping the needy and not stealing the money of our country. Therefore I complain and complain because this is where I live, where we all live. We are not fools anymore who do not realize the government’s actions. There are people getting richer, and people who live in poverty because nobody does anything, and they do not care.
The people up there hate who are under them, and the people under hate the ones from above. Thanks to that the lower class recur to kidnapping, sell drugs, robbery, and delinquency because is their only option left. Making our country more miserable and insecure. we give the government more and more power which only causes them to screw us up harder. We could be a world power, but now we are poor, and the people who run us mishandle us.
We were not born somewhere where there is nothing to eat. We always rise from the mud and look for options to have another chance. We never ask ourselves, what can I do? They paint us as sluggish, but we are not, Viva Mexico Cabrones! Why are we following a bunch of dumbasses who lead us where they suit them? It is our sweat and effort that are supporting them, which keeps them eating hot bread, that hot bread that was made by our people. We are more. We can handle more. We are Mexico.

Section 6 of The Road by Cormac McCarthy is, mostly, about the loss of innocence of a child, more specifically ‘the boy’. The story is about a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic world, they focus on surviving each day and have no other goal or reason to do so; they keep living because they have to. An innocent kid who knows nothing about everything, a kid who is constantly scared and awaiting death in the world they live in. It was meant to take this boy’s innocence. They live in a corrupted world, people desperate enough to turn others into food, nobody knows any better because there is no other way of survival. The question is, what caused the boy to lose his ingenuity from night to day? Cannibalism was the reason. It was something the boy knew existed, but this time it was coming for him. Going into a house with untouched windows is already a warning sign, looking around this place for food to satiate their hunger is what got them in trouble. The thing is, they found food, just not the kind they were searching for, they found naked and burnt human bodies, living human bodies, all asking for help but the ones who had done this were just upstairs, arriving for dinner. 

What differentiates these two characters from the rest is their morality. Even with all that has happened, they both have morals and know right from wrong, unlike the rest of humanity. The boy is just a kid, and as a kid he wants to help people who are unassistable, and witnessing such a scene is enough for him to realize that he is incapable, he is incapable because he lives in a world of eat or be eaten. The boy had to learn this the hard way and, after all the horrible things he had to face because of it, his innocence got taken away. 

After escaping their nightmares and surviving the horrors of that house, they found a shelter. A place with food and bunk beds and mattresses and blankets, even a stove. When they settle for the night the man, the boy’s father, feels like something is gone and it’s never coming back: “But when he bent to see into the boy’s face under the hood of the blanket he very much feared that something was gone that could not be put right again” (McCarthy 136). Whatever the father felt was missing from his son, whatever he just lost, was his innocence. No person can be kept from harm’s way in their world; therefore, no person can be innocent for long enough, there’s no exemption. Throughout the chapter there are more signs and hints of this happening, along with the obvious signs of trauma both, the man and the boy, have. When they first discovered their shelter, the boy was scared of going in and finding the same result as last time– enslaved, naked people, about to be eaten and begging for help.– He is constantly scared and hiding from the world, and the mentions of the death he wishes for just add more to his depression. The man is no different, he has flashbacks of his old life, he hates his dreams, he hates remembering things that are no longer there, like his wife. He lives in denial and faces it at the same time, and with all that he has seen and lived, all he has left is his son and his faith. 

Both characters need the other to survive, it’s their only reason to, this section of the book shows it as well as the rest. The way they depend on each other to keep going shows that they’re each other’s worlds. But with the man sick and dying, everyday weakening, we don’t know how much longer this will last. Because without the man, the boy is doomed to fail and end without a life to care for. The boy loses his innocence through his travels on the road, he has to lose it to survive because his naiveness will not help him more than harm him.