John Jacob
EN 101.16
10/17/2013
Blog post 4
Perseverance
In
the readings, Frankenstein by Mary
Shelley, “Theology” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen’s “Tableau,” all
obtain a certain aspect of perseverance. Victor, the protagonist in
Frankenstein, wants to learn more of the natural sciences and philosophy.
Dunbar writes about how there is a heaven. The speaker in Cullen’s poem
“Tableau,” uses two particularly different boys to show friendship despite
their obstacles.
Victor,
the protagonist of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,
clearly likes to learn. At the age of thirteen he was reading
about Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus who all contributed to
Victor’s inspiration of the natural sciences. Wanting to prolong his education,
he decided to attend university in Ingolstadt. He met with a professor named M.
Krempe who criticized Victor’s heroes saying that what he learned was “nonsense.”
However, once he met with his Chemistry professor, M. Waldman, who accepted the
studies of Victor’s inspirations, encouraged Victor to further continue his love
to study science. Despite the remarks of M. Krempe, Victor persevered to search
for his opportunity to continue his education with his inspiring scientists as his foundation of learning.
“Theology”
by Dunbar is a short poem called an epigram. In his epigram he writes about his
“longing” to go to heaven. He believes that “there is a heaven, for ever, day
by day,” as written in the first line of the poem. Everyday his “soul” longs
for heaven and he is confident that there is one everyday. Through this poem
Dunbar shows perseverance to keep the faith into their being a heaven.
The
poem “Tableau” is written about two boys, one black, and one white. The first
line “Locked arm in arm they cross the way,” shows the intimacy in their
relationship despite the time period they live in where “lowered blinds the
dark fold stare And here the fair folk talk,” meaning they didn’t show weakness
to those who judged their friendship.
Because of this, they preserve through their enemies as is said in the
last two lines of the poem “They pass, and see no wonder That lighting
brilliant as a sword should blaze the path of thunder.”
On
Monday, I had to attend a mandatory lecture called “Matthew and the end of the
world” for my theology course presented by Dr. Alison. He asked us “Why do we
always try to predict the end of the world?” He mentioned how people in the
past have tried to persevere towards a conclusion of the world. He added that
these assumptions appear because we believe that our time is the most important
time, and how we tend to believe that everything bad happens during our
existence. In some way, I can agree, however, I believe that instead of
persevering to find an ending we need to persevere to find ourselves. If we
have all the time in the world, why spend that time finding the countdown.
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