Preview

The Child In The Basement David Brooks Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
630 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Child In The Basement David Brooks Analysis
The Child in the Basement by David Brooks, is “a critique of American moral life”. Its basic themes are scapegoating, morality and duality of human nature, along with political ideology. It throws light on the social contact in Omelas, when one child is locked in basement and suffers horribly to make other’s lives happy and comfortable. This way, the story is basically a parable about exploitation, and a challenge to the utilitarian mind set of present days.
In short, this fiction story, covers the ideas of “ what happiness is? And what is the cost of happiness? While,The documentary film “ I Am” follows the director Tom Shadyac, who after a near-death accident in life, changes his focus of mind. This injury changed everything and left him

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the article “Happiness: Enough Already” the author Sharon Begley draws up the argument that happiness may be the ultimate goal in life for many people, but too much happiness can also be as what she describes as “the end of the drive for ever-greater heights of happiness” (page number). Throughout the article Begley conveys that happiness is not always for the best, and that sometimes sadness and negativity brings out the best in a person. Begley proves her point by exploiting the negative views of happiness. Begley suggest that happiness is not instilled in a person for a long time because “negative emotion evolved for a reason” (page number). Begley then moves forward to better prove her explanation by emphasizing successful artists who…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is always a more extensive range of situations that could happen to a child being brutally abused. In the book A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer, I believe that a variety of situations, good and bad will happen to Dave in the next few chapters. I predict the atrocious and exploitative actions Dave's mother is doing will lead a school staff member to find out about the abuse, Dave’s father to leave the home and Dave to be hospitalized.…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Happiness will endlessly be bound by the pressure to choose. Having the choice to either compromise or pursue joy in our lives, is what makes being happy more fulfilling. For some, compromising their happiness is a way to please other people or the idea of their future. In his short story “Home Place”, Guy Vanderhaeghe explores this topic and more, as we go through a fathers responsibility in fostering happiness in his son. The short story examines Gil and his son Ronald, who rushes through marriage in order to inherit a massive family farm owned by Gil, and past generations of his family.…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For centuries, society has shaped these abstract ideas of what happiness means and how one could achieve happiness in their lives. However, in order to even understand what actions could lead to one’s happiness, one must be able to understand the definition of happiness itself. Having read Charles Dicken’s book Great Expectations, happiness persists as a pleasure or sense of a meaningful and rich psychosocial integration in a person’s understanding of himself or herself.…

    • 74 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Child Called ‘It’” is a non-fictional novel written by a survivor and activist of child abuse, Dave Pelzer. Among Pelzer’s many works of several autobiographies and self-help books, this novel is the most popular. “A Child Called ‘It’” was published in 1995 by ¬¬¬HCI and has won two literary awards: West Australian Young Readers' Book Award (WAYRBA) for Older Readers (2005), Abraham Lincoln Award (2005) (Good Reads).…

    • 1193 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In planning her Happiness Project, Rubin turned to the wisdom of the ages, scientific knowledge, and lessons from pop culture all aimed at creating happiness. She uses this book to set down her adventures and discoveries along the way. She learned a number of things, including that novelty and challenge are important sources of happiness, that while perhaps money can’t completely buy happiness it can help in its purchase when it is spent with fore thought, that ordering and organizing her external environment contributed to a sense of inner peace, that treating herself could make her feel worse, that venting negative emotions didn’t get rid of them, and that sometimes it was the smallest of changes that could make the largest differences in her world and her happiness.…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Novelist Ayn Rand, in her book Anthem, wrote, “My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose”. Although happiness may seem like a simple concept to many, sometimes we don’t recognize it but we always take different paths, face many obstacles, and spend most of our lives trying to achieve happiness. Depending on the circumstances, every person has their own definition of what it means to attain happiness, whether through wealth, success, health, love etc. Happiness is a notion that be developed by focusing on the smaller things in life which are not given a great deal of thought to, but still can heavily impact us. One of these smaller yet significant ideas in life is individualism. Today…

    • 273 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Child Called “It”, by Dave Pelzer, is a first person narrative of a child’s struggle through a traumatic abused childhood. The book begins with Dave telling us about his last day at his Mother’s house before he was taken away by law enforcement. At first I could not understand why he had started at the end of his tale, but after reading the entire book it was clear to me that it was easier to read it knowing there indeed was a light at the end of the dark tunnel. This horrific account of extreme abuse leaves us with a great number of questions which unfortunately we do not have answers for. It tells us what happened to this little boy and that miraculously he was able to survive and live to see the day he left this hole which was his home, however, it does not tell us why or even give us a good amount of background with which to speculate the why to this abuse.…

    • 1137 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Happiness is truly a feeling that everyone gets. Whether it’s getting that favorite game or a new car, the way people see happiness can be different than others. The pursuit of happiness is what inspires true happiness and that is something indescribable. In Charles Mungoshi short story, “the setting sun and the rolling world”, he describes two different perspectives of happiness. The perspective of old Musoni and his son, Nhamo. Mungoshi’s most important theme is that one’s pursuit of happiness can give someone pain. Three important examples support this. The first is Nhamo and his father, old Musoni, arguing about Nhamo’s decision. The second is old Musoni’s fear for his son in the big world. The third is old Musoni’s emotional approval for his son. These examples would demonstrate and help with the idea of the theme.…

    • 350 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We often encourage people to actively pursue their happiness and discourage them to escape from the reality. However, escaping is also a way of pursuing happiness, even though escaping will only provide temporary happiness and facing the reality will make true happiness possible. The short story “Horses of the Night” uses its character Chris to demonstrate the idea that individuals may escape from the miserable aspects of life to stay happy, however, individuals will compromise their ability to pursue true happiness if they escape.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Unit 4 Essay

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This week, our writing assignment focuses on individual definitions of happiness. For this writing assignment, you will prepare and conduct interviews with two people about their definition of happiness, how they gained this view, and whether they feel happiness is achievable.…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Instead, we will look to a second definition of happiness by Miriam-Webster presenting a definition that more reasonably proposes that happiness is one’s position on life rather than a transient feeling. Miriam-Webster states that happiness is “a state of well-being and contentment.” By introducing this idea of well-being to an explanation of the inspiration of happiness, Miriam-Webster’s definition suggests that different elements, such as health and comfort, are required to create happiness. Many people over the course of history have attempted to define happiness, and some definitions are quite interesting, however, who is to say that any of the definitions are correct or incorrect? To answer the original question asked, “What is happiness?” there is no definite way to define happiness, especially not a definition that will be valid for every person. Happiness is something that is achieved, and once achieved, that person knows that something is different. It is something strived towards in our society because there are so many people facing adversity that many are unable to find their happiness due to their worries. In his book, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley introduces a type of society quite different from our own in which happiness…

    • 1490 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The book “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis focuses on how people of other races or poor lived their lives in tenement houses. The most disturbing of all examples are the children and the problems they faced. In chapters 15, 16, 17, and 20 of “How the Other Half Lives” describes how children slept on the streets, had no homes or heat, and in a lot of cases, died. Imagine a life where a child had little food to eat, no where to sleep, savaging the streets, and looking for someone who would maybe love them and take care of them.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    stumbling on happiness

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Daniel Gilbert was born on November 5, 1957. He was a high school drop out at age 19 who was interested in writing. He started at a community college taking creative writing classes. He later went on to receive a bachelor of arts in psychology from the University of Colorado Denver in 1981 and a Ph. D. in social psychology from Princeton University in 1985. He is currently a professor at Harvard University, a non-fiction writer, and a journalist. His book, Stumbling On Happiness, is an international best seller.…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though it is a utopian society there will always be one person who is not as happy as everyone else there. The child in the basement is this person. In Omelas, they sacrifice the happiness of one child to suffering so that the rest of the city can obtain happiness. The child is a representation of being poor and shows misery. The people of Omelas lock the child in a basement, representing a prison for the child and the idea of him being homeless with no one to turn to. The happiness of the city depends on the child’s grief: “Some of them understand why, and some don’t, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships,…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays