Everyone is placed on the earth with a purposeful or sincere intent. Or are some things placed here by some creator with a very good sense of humor as a joke. In Dillard's essay she leaves you questioning whether everything on this earth was made in jest or in earnest. She uses her own experiences in trying to answer this question. Is this question just one of life's unanswered questions? We can all come to our own opinion, but there way never be a right answer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Instead for this essay it is more of "beauty is in the eye of the creator". When a creature is made it may not be seen as beautiful to a strangers eye, but it may be the most precious creation to the creator. There are murders, thieves, and robbers placed on this earth, but for what reason. Maybe they are not placed here just to keep the world running. I mean would they really have been put here for the sole purpose of creating evil? That is the question Dillard wants us to answer and she tries to do so in this essay.
In Dillard's first scene, she comes across a frog who has just had the life sucked out of him by a "Giant water bug". She begins to question the water bug's purpose for being created. We are all like the water bug in a sense. We are constantly looking for food, destroying anything in our path to survive in life. But Dillard was attracted first to the frog and felt more compassion for the frog when he died. If the tables were turned you have to think that same frog killed probably killed quite a few fly's hour's before. So what the giant water bug did is no worse then what the frog did to innocent flies hours before. A question that Dillard asks while she is still trying to make sense of the scene she just witnessed is "If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then made in earnest?"(224) By that question she means that the creator could of either created this animal as a good thing, or as a bad thing intentionally placed on this earth to create harm.
There is ample evidence for the success of Frogs; it was awarded first prize at the Lenaia in 405BC and was performed again in the following year. This restaging was an unprecedented event, even more so after the Athenian State, historically "well able to look after itself both in peace and in war' ...
In "On the Life of Man" Ralegh portrays life as a play with many changes of scene, in its last act it also conveys a tragic earnestness imposed by the inevitability of death : What is our life a play of passion ; Our mirth the music of division ; Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be Where we are dressed for this short comedy. ... Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest, Only we die in earnest --- that's no jest. ...
The Cheese and the Worms was a story written about a sixteenth-century miller, named Domenico Scandell, who went by the name of Menocchio. He was denounced to the Holy office being accused of speaking heretical and most pious words about Christ. Carlo Ginzburg uses trial records as his primary sou...
, Belinda asks her beau to retrieve the lock: "With earnest Eyes, and round unthinking Face, He first the Snuff-box open'd, then the Case, And thus broke out--- "My Lord, why, what the Devil? ... 'tis past a Jest---nay prithee, Pox! ...
In the parados of The Frogs, there is also another quote which represents the desire of Aristophanes of winning the competition- the chorus sings to Demeter, "Part in earnest, part in jest, we may shine above the rest, and our play in all men's eyes favour find, and win the prize." ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE William Shakespeare, probably one of the most or the most well-known dramatist that has ever lived. But many people still find his work boring. Why? Maybe they don't know much about him, or were forced to learn about him and they didn't want to. So, why should people today study Shakespeare? ...
1. Introduction The living conditions of the lower class in Victorian England, under the effects of industrialization, is one of the most frequently depicted issues in nineteenth century British literature. Elizabeth Gaskell, a prominent novelist from that era wrote about these conditions and was a ...
