The whiskey priest is not a perfect man. A man of many flaws, he is the last priest in a violent and forlorn land. And yet, throughout all of the struggles of life in Tabasco, Mexico he is still able to hear the word of God, and he becomes much more than a man to the people of Mexico. To them, he becomes a savior and a hero. In the novel The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, the whiskey priest is not just the last priest left in a desert wasteland, he is the embodiment of Jesus Christ from the passion, trying to help the world for a cause that he truly believes in.
In the desolate land that is Tabasco, Mexico the priest is the only religious man left. The priest realizes that it his duty to bring religion to the oppressed people, despite knowing that even if he is caught he will be killed. Even though the easy choice would be to turn himself in, the priest's conviction prevails and he continues performing his priestly obligations, spreading the word of God throughout Mexico. Jesus spent his life trying to teach the word of God throughout the world, and stopping at nothing to get his message across, even after death. Jesus and the whiskey priest share many similarities, both are religious men in a dangerous part of the world, trying to teach Christianity to the rest of the population.
The similarities between the two are not just in their life, but also their death. The whiskey priest is led to his death while attempting to fulfill a dying man's wish, a confession. The priest is caught and executed on the jefe's orders. Jesus was captured under orders from Pontius Pilate and was crucified, rising on the third day. After the whiskey priest's execution, another priest arrives, resembling a resurrection of the whiskey priest, and of the Catholic church.
The man responsible for the whiskey priest's death, the mestizo, is a greedy and dishonest man. Out to collect the reward, he attempts to become the priest's friend and follower, similarly to how Judas was Jesus' apostle. The priest knows of the mestizo's intentions, even referring to him as a Judas-like figure, but the priest shows nothing but love for him. The first time they meet, the mestizo becomes sick, but the priest puts him on mule's back and leads him to a town. Even when the priest is knowingly being led to his capture, he doesn't punish the mestizo or attempt to harm him, but rather focuses on giving the man's confession. Jesus treats Judas in a similar manner, never punishing Judas for his actions.
Keeping in with the parallelism between the passion and The Power and the Glory, the man responsible for capturing the whiskey priest, the lieutenant, represents a character from the passion, Pontius Pilate. The lieutenant, upon meeting the priest, finds that he does not hate the whiskey priest. In fact, he views the whiskey priest as a bright and intelligent man, a man that is worth saving. On the eve of the whiskey priest's death, he shows great kindness to the priest, searching the town for somebody to give the priest confession, and giving him a bottle of brandy. Pontius Pilate views Jesus Christ in a similar manner in the passion. He is very reluctant to send Jesus to be crucified, as he does not see Jesus' actions as criminal ones, much in the way that the lieutenant respects the whiskey priest.
Although it is one of the most important events in Christianity, is hard to comprehend just how difficult some of the decisions Jesus made for the rest of the world so that the word of God wouldn't die. Graham Greene parallels the Jesus' choices using the whiskey priest, highlighting just how hard his life was, and how hard it would be to give your life for people who you will never meet, but people who will rely on you and follow your word.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Will to Survive
an essay response to the novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Life is a struggle. The will to survive is what keeps people going every day. People make choices every day, although they are usually ones like what we’re going to eat for lunch or what to watch on TV, choices that are small and irrelevant in the greater scheme of life. Rarely are people ever thrust into situations where decisions are influenced by the will to survive, and the decisions they make today determine if there will ever be a tomorrow. Pi Patel is thrust into that situation, after he is deserted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without a way to contact any humans. The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel shows that throughout the easiest parts of life, and the most trying struggles in life, one thing keeps us going, the will to survive.
As a boy living in India, Pi was a strict vegetarian. His Hindu religion taught him that animals were also God’s creatures and that they should be treated like human beings. Pi refused to meat and wouldn’t even eat bananas because the sound of it peeling sounded like an animal dying. The first few days aboard the boat, Pi tries to remain a vegetarian, by eating biscuits, but it becomes clear that he will have to eat meat to survive. Pi’s will to survive overcomes a lifelong practice and completely turns it around, turning Pi into a meat eater. Oftentimes, we adopt habits in the easy times of life that are considered acceptable, and in the hard times in life, we realize the impracticality of frivolous habits.
Apart from changing his eating habits, Pi also has to perform acts which break all conventions and which bypass all of his religious teachings as a child. As Pi’s food situation deteriorates he realizes that to survive he will have to kill animals to survive. Pi’s religions have always taught that killing is bad, and children have it engrained in their head from a young age that killing is one of the worst things you can do. And yet, Pi understands all of this, and still makes the decision to kill for food. The first fish that Pi kills, a small flying fish, leaves a deep mark on Pi. After he finally snaps its neck, he cries and ends up praying for it for the rest of his life. Martel shows through this scene that the will to survive often drives us to desperate measures, but at the cost that we often regret our decisions later on.
At the conclusion of the novel, Martel presents us with an interesting story, in which the entire story was made up, and the animals were in fact people. In this version of the novel, all of the animals are given a human counterpart, including Richard Parker being Pi. If this version of the story is true, all of the atrocious acts that Richard Parker committed would actually be acts that Pi had performed. This would include acts of cold-blooded killing of other human beings and facing the greatest taboo of all: cannibalism. At the point where it’s just Pi and the sailor, the sailor comes to realize that the decisions he made to survive are so horrendous that life was not worth living anymore. Pi kills the sailor, but realizes that to survive, he must eat the sailor. Pi also experiences cannibalism later on in the novel when he meets the man on the lifeboat and Pi kills him and eats his remains.
Martel also shows the distance that living creatures will go to survive not just in Pi, but also in the other people in the boat. The story which Pi tells that involves the humans displays the acts that people are capable of to simply keep on surviving. The young sailor that breaks his leg from the jump to the lifeboat lives for days after having his leg amputated. Even when he is knocking at death’s door, he still fights to stay alive every second, despite the fact that they are stranded in the lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. After the sailor dies the cook understands that it is necessary to eat the sailor’s remains to stay alive. Pi’s normally calm mother attempts to fight off the cook, until he overwhelms her and kills her. Pi eventually kills the cook and becomes the lone survivor on the lifeboat.
Throughout his entire ordeal, Pi has very little to live for. His situation is dire and throughout the whole ordeal Pi realizes that there is little chance of him being found. And yet, Pi knows that even through all of the struggles and perils of life, the joyous moments and the happy moments make life a beautiful thing.
Life is a struggle. The will to survive is what keeps people going every day. People make choices every day, although they are usually ones like what we’re going to eat for lunch or what to watch on TV, choices that are small and irrelevant in the greater scheme of life. Rarely are people ever thrust into situations where decisions are influenced by the will to survive, and the decisions they make today determine if there will ever be a tomorrow. Pi Patel is thrust into that situation, after he is deserted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without a way to contact any humans. The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel shows that throughout the easiest parts of life, and the most trying struggles in life, one thing keeps us going, the will to survive.
As a boy living in India, Pi was a strict vegetarian. His Hindu religion taught him that animals were also God’s creatures and that they should be treated like human beings. Pi refused to meat and wouldn’t even eat bananas because the sound of it peeling sounded like an animal dying. The first few days aboard the boat, Pi tries to remain a vegetarian, by eating biscuits, but it becomes clear that he will have to eat meat to survive. Pi’s will to survive overcomes a lifelong practice and completely turns it around, turning Pi into a meat eater. Oftentimes, we adopt habits in the easy times of life that are considered acceptable, and in the hard times in life, we realize the impracticality of frivolous habits.
Apart from changing his eating habits, Pi also has to perform acts which break all conventions and which bypass all of his religious teachings as a child. As Pi’s food situation deteriorates he realizes that to survive he will have to kill animals to survive. Pi’s religions have always taught that killing is bad, and children have it engrained in their head from a young age that killing is one of the worst things you can do. And yet, Pi understands all of this, and still makes the decision to kill for food. The first fish that Pi kills, a small flying fish, leaves a deep mark on Pi. After he finally snaps its neck, he cries and ends up praying for it for the rest of his life. Martel shows through this scene that the will to survive often drives us to desperate measures, but at the cost that we often regret our decisions later on.
At the conclusion of the novel, Martel presents us with an interesting story, in which the entire story was made up, and the animals were in fact people. In this version of the novel, all of the animals are given a human counterpart, including Richard Parker being Pi. If this version of the story is true, all of the atrocious acts that Richard Parker committed would actually be acts that Pi had performed. This would include acts of cold-blooded killing of other human beings and facing the greatest taboo of all: cannibalism. At the point where it’s just Pi and the sailor, the sailor comes to realize that the decisions he made to survive are so horrendous that life was not worth living anymore. Pi kills the sailor, but realizes that to survive, he must eat the sailor. Pi also experiences cannibalism later on in the novel when he meets the man on the lifeboat and Pi kills him and eats his remains.
Martel also shows the distance that living creatures will go to survive not just in Pi, but also in the other people in the boat. The story which Pi tells that involves the humans displays the acts that people are capable of to simply keep on surviving. The young sailor that breaks his leg from the jump to the lifeboat lives for days after having his leg amputated. Even when he is knocking at death’s door, he still fights to stay alive every second, despite the fact that they are stranded in the lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. After the sailor dies the cook understands that it is necessary to eat the sailor’s remains to stay alive. Pi’s normally calm mother attempts to fight off the cook, until he overwhelms her and kills her. Pi eventually kills the cook and becomes the lone survivor on the lifeboat.
Throughout his entire ordeal, Pi has very little to live for. His situation is dire and throughout the whole ordeal Pi realizes that there is little chance of him being found. And yet, Pi knows that even through all of the struggles and perils of life, the joyous moments and the happy moments make life a beautiful thing.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Fahrenheit 451 Project
The year is 2028. Russia, North Korea, and China have banded together to form an alliance devoted to eradicate democracy and freedom in the world. They finally decide to start their attack, and launch nuclear missiles and send ground troops over the border from Russia to attack several countries, Poland, Latvia, and Lithunia. You are the general of the army, and you must come up with any solution possible to destroy the nuclear missiles and protect the earth from global nuclear war. The solutions you come up with will be forwarded to the president who will make the final decision on how to handle this crisis.
My solution takes the form of a letter to the president from the general of the army.
At the end of Fahrenheit 451, a nuclear bomb dropped by America’s enemies completely destroys the city that Montag had lived in. Throughout the novel, nuclear war had constantly been hinted at, whether it be a radio transmission, or if it was just a casual talk and war was just talked about as a far away event. Eventually, nuclear war does happen, and vaporizes Montag’s home city within seconds. The way that nuclear war is treated in the book is kind of like in real life. While never directly at the center of attention, the threat and possibility of nuclear war always is omnipresent in the novel hanging like a cloud on a sunny day. In real life, it’s a little bit like that, though not mentioned as often. Every once in a while though, there will be reports of a nuclear missile test going off in a different country, or a country that has just developed a nuclear power site claiming it’s for energy, and they’re small steps towards the awful possibility of global nuclear war. In 1947, the bulletin of atomic scientists started a doomsday clock, a clock that measures how close the world is to nuclear war. The closest it’s been was in 1952, when the United States and Russia tested nukes within two months of each other, right around the time that this book was published. I think that the tense times between Russia and America influenced the outcome of this novel.
My solution takes the form of a letter to the president from the general of the army.
At the end of Fahrenheit 451, a nuclear bomb dropped by America’s enemies completely destroys the city that Montag had lived in. Throughout the novel, nuclear war had constantly been hinted at, whether it be a radio transmission, or if it was just a casual talk and war was just talked about as a far away event. Eventually, nuclear war does happen, and vaporizes Montag’s home city within seconds. The way that nuclear war is treated in the book is kind of like in real life. While never directly at the center of attention, the threat and possibility of nuclear war always is omnipresent in the novel hanging like a cloud on a sunny day. In real life, it’s a little bit like that, though not mentioned as often. Every once in a while though, there will be reports of a nuclear missile test going off in a different country, or a country that has just developed a nuclear power site claiming it’s for energy, and they’re small steps towards the awful possibility of global nuclear war. In 1947, the bulletin of atomic scientists started a doomsday clock, a clock that measures how close the world is to nuclear war. The closest it’s been was in 1952, when the United States and Russia tested nukes within two months of each other, right around the time that this book was published. I think that the tense times between Russia and America influenced the outcome of this novel.
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